top of page
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter is known as the most respected living artist. His series of works on daily objects also inspired me, such as chair series and toilet paper series（As shown in figure 1,2,3），The source photograph of the painting was taken by Richter himself: "This was a chair I owned and photographed. It was part of my search for banal objects – the chair itself, the table, the toilet roll. Although the great majority of the photo-paintings are based on photos which came from outside sources, this was one I took myself."（Richter，1991）The painting Kitchen Chair joins other early works by the artist that take banal everyday objects as subjects, in the tradition of Pop Art.（Gerhard Richter，2020）He expresses the mystery of this everyday object, and he expresses it very well, which is exactly what I want to express and explore.
Figure 1, Gerhard Richter, kitchen Chair, 1965
Oil on Canvas
Figure 2, Gerhard Richter, Small Chair, 1965
Oil on Canvas
Figure 3, Toilet tissue series, 1965
Oil on Canvas
His exploration of the same object is depicted from different spaces, environments and perspectives. For the toilet tissue series shown in Figure 3, Gerhard shows the elusive unknown and mysteriousness of things from different angles and orientations. Look at Figure 1 and Figure 2 for different chairs. Gerhard observes the different characteristics of the chairs. Using different expression methods to describe, the chair in Figure 1 is more square, so he also depicts the edge contour of the object more square and clearer. On the contrary, the shape of the chair in Figure 2 is more round, and he depicts it more vaguely and softly, which makes the round feature of the chair more strongly expressed. By feeling the different characteristics of the object and using different methods to describe it, he makes the character of the object more clear.
In the 1960s, when Pop Art emerged in the United States, Richter also began to explore the relationship between photographic images and paintings from this period, laying the foundation for his later world-famous creations. When a large number of European artists abandoned traditional painting and experimented with installation art and conceptual art, Richter used meticulous photo-painting to make people re-examine the power of painting and history. In this era when photography poses many repressions and challenges to painting, Richter's works have brought a large number of photos and images into his creative process, calmly restrained, without any personal emotions, regaining the inherent classic meaning of paintings, and conveying the eternity behind them. calm and real （As shown in figure 4）.
Figure 4, Gerhard Richter，Schmidt family, 1964
Oil on Canvas
Reference
Richter, G. (1965) kitchen Chair, [Oil on Canvas]. Available at: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/household-icons-39/kitchen-chair-5615
Richter, G. (1965) small Chair, [Oil on Canvas]. Available at: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/paintings/photo-paintings/household-icons-39/small-chair-5618
Richter, G. (1965) Toilet Paper, [Oil on Canvas]. Available at: https://seattleartistleague.com/2016/12/08/gerhard-richter-toilet-paper/
Gerhard Richter (2020) Available at: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/zh/ (Accessed: 2020).
Richter, G. (1964) Schmidt family, [Oil on Canvas]. Hamburger Kunsthalle，Hamburg
bottom of page