Gerhard Richter Lot n° 18

Gerhard Richter Candle II 1989 Oil on nitro lacquer coated offset print on cardboard on plastic 90.3 x 90, 3 cm. Framed. Signed, dated and numbered. Signed, dated and numbered on the reverse of the plastic. Copy 48/50 (+18). Achenbach Art Edition, Düsseldorf - With minor signs of age. Hubertus Butin et al. (eds.), Gerhard Richter, Editions 1965-2013, Ostfildern-Ruit 2014, WVZ no.66. Provenance Galerie Gilbert Brownstone, Paris (with labels on the reverse); private collection, Belgium. The candle is a still life motif that exerts a special fascination on Gerhard Richter. In 1982/83 he transformed the subject of burning candles into 25 oil paintings based on his own photographs; one of these paintings became the photographic model for the three offset prints "Kerze I, II und III" in 1988/89. "While the candle is depicted strongly plastic with a body shadow, the brownish background has a depth that cannot be fathomed. [...] What seems more important, however, is that Richter introduced another pictorial level in the prints - in contrast to the paintings. In both "Kerze II" and "Kerze III" he has partially over-inked the picture with black oil paint, so that the representational motif is covered with a patch-like, abstract structure. [...] These two simultaneous levels of reality paradoxically enter into a close relationship in the paintings; they appear as an interlocked unity whose tension derives from the clear contrast of the different forms of production. Although the motif of the candle appears realistic, it is only an illusionistic and thus intangible representation; in contrast, the squeegeed paint possesses a distinctly material, tangible reality precisely because it conveys itself as a pastose, independent structure. This results in a surprising ambivalence of realism and non-objectivity, of appearance and reality, which in Richter's work have become interchangeable categories." (Hubertus Butin, in: Gerhard Richter Editionen, op. cit., p.90f.)