Gerhard Richter * Lot n° 237

(born in Dresden in 1932) Rot-blau-gelb, 1973, signed, dated and numbered 74 on the reverse, oil on canvas, cm. 26,5 x 53, framed This work is number 74 from an edition of 100 unique works Provenance: Galerie Seerial, Amsterdam Sotheby’s London, 24 June 2004, lot 27 Anthony D’Offay Gallery, London Galerie Löhrl, Mönchengladbach (certificate available) European Private Collection Literature: H.Butin, Gerhard Richter. Unikate in Serie, Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft, Koln 2017, pp. 104-105 Gerhard Richter. Die Editionen, exh. cat., Museum Folkwang, Essen, 7 April - 30 July 2017, pp. 40-41 Gerahrd Richter, Über Malen, Hirmer Verlag 2017, p. 114 P. Moorhouse, Gerhard Richter: Abstraction and Appearance, Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center November 2016 – February 2017, Moscow, pp. 21-22, 38 Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonné 1968 - 1976, vol. II, Dresden, 1993, no. 338 1-100, pp. 508, 509 with ill. Producing Rot-Blau-Gelb in 1973, Richter suspended one hundred identically sized canvases side-by-side to create one large surface upon which he used a single broad brush to trace in endless streaks of paint traversing the canvas the three primary colours red, blue and yellow, until the shades lost their uniqueness to blend into a uniform complexion. All that remained visible was a congealed gestural stroke of the brush following no evident comprehensible system, elevating the mere belts of seemingly braided paint to become the content of the image. The movements appeared to start nowhere, and end nowhere, while refusing to obey any traceable rhythm.(2) Afterwards, the one hundred individual pieces were separated and sold individually, thus stripping away the experience of any harmonious composition within the overall piece, laying bare the doubt and scepticism that Richter felt toward any objective reality underlying the phenomena around us. Displacing each coincidently re-emerging snippet of the entire picture within a different context has sweeping consequences: details suddenly acquire a prominent position within the inner working of the painting, exerting influence through their shifting dimensions and new framing