The beautiful catalog Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting accompanies the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of this prolific and important German artist. Richter's many artistic achievements vacillate between pure abstraction and a kind of realism. His realistic paintings, based primarily on personal photographs and images from newspapers, range in subject matter from the banal, like rolls of toilet paper, to the extremely potent, such as famous Nazi "doctor" Werner Hyde. The paintings have in common an emotional remove; the re-creating of photographic images points us toward our own possible emotional detachment to the influx of images in the world. A blurred chair, Jackie Kennedy, burning candles, family portraits--Richter lays them all out before us as if to say, Here, they are all the same. The insightful text by MoMA curator Robert Storr provides an in-depth look at Richter's life in postwar Germany, tracing the influences and environment that made his work possible. The book includes a revealing interview with the artist and a detailed chronology of his life and work, plus 138 color illustrations and 165 duotones. --J.P. Cohen

From Library Journal
With this catalog of the first major U.S. retrospective of the remarkably diverse paintings of the German-born Richter, Storr (senior curator of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, NY; Gerhard Richter: October 18, 1977) sets out to increase our understanding of Richter to parallel that of American contemporary post-abstract expressionists (among them, Jasper Johns and Robert Ryman). Storr's fascinating introductory and biographical essay frames the historical, art, and personal movements that have provoked Richter's exploration of painting's place in a world rent by World War II, photography, and abstraction. Among other insights, Storr hits on the distancing discomfort of studying Richter's photo-based paintings when he cites the painter's "calculated discretion" in dealing with catastrophic subject matter, such as aspects of the Holocaust. Over 200 color and duotone images, gorgeously reproduced, firmly document the full range of this vital artist, encompassing everything from his intense, colorful abstractions to his gray-scale photo-reproductions to his highly realistic portraits and still lifes, and more. An interview with Richter fills out the book. This will be the standard on Richter for some time to come, and it is essential for all serious art collections. Rebecca Miller, "Library Journal"Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times, February 15, 2002 – Michael Kimmelman
…one of the finest, most beautiful and strangely moving exhibitions of the work of a living painter in years.

The Village Voice, February 25, 2002 – Jerry Saltz
Curator Robert Storr—who also wrote the catalog's penetrating 80-page essay—…. effectively streamlines the story.

The New Yorker, February 25, 2002 -- Peter Schjeldahl
…his forty-year career comes off as a resounding hosanna of piquant, good, and great paintings, with something for everyone.

Artnet.com, February 21, 2002 – Charlie Finch
Whatever your favorite Richters, this is one exhibition, curated to perfection, which will reward repeated viewings.

Artnet.com, January 30, 2002 – Charlie Finch
Richter perfectly captures the way we look at things, hazily, momentarily, in a flash, and temporarily "preserves" it…

Rain Taxi Review of Books, Fall 2002
"Auster's typewriter will be forever preserved in this wonderful little book..."

Book Description
Ranging from photo-based pictures to gestural abstraction, Gerhard Richter's diverse body of work calls into question many widely held attitudes about the inherent importance of stylistic consistency, the "natural" evolution of individual artistic sensibility, the spontaneous component of creativity, and the relationship of technological means and mass media imagery to traditional studio methods and formats. Unlike many of his peers, he has explored these issues through the medium of painting, challenging it to meet the demands posed by new forms of conceptual art. In every level of his varied output--from his austere photo-based realism of the early 60s, to his brightly colored gestural abstractions of the early 80s, to his startling cycle of black-and-white paintings of the Baader-Meinhof group--Richter has assumed a critical distance from vanguardists and conservatives alike regarding what painting should be. The result has been among the most convincing renewal of painting's vitality to be found in late 20th- and early 21st-century art. With an extensive and insightful critical essay by curator Robert Storr, a recent interview with the artist, a chronology, an exhibition history, and nearly 300 color and duotone reproductions, "Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting" marks a significant contribution to the understanding of contemporary art in general, and Gerhard Richter in particular. By Robert Storr. 10 x 11.25 in. 138 color, 87 duotone illustrations

About the Author
Robert Storr is the Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has published monographs on Philip Guston, Robert Ryman and Raymond Pettibon, and has been a contributing editor at "Art in America" since 1981. He is also the author of "Gerhard Richter: October 18, 1977". Born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany, Gerhard Richter grew up under National Socialism and lived for 16 years under East German Communism before moving to West Germany in 1961. In the heady artistic milieu of Cologne and Dusseldorf in the 1960s, Richter discovered Art Informel, Neo-Dada, and Fluxus, and, together with Sigmar Polke and Konrad Lueg, briefly formed a satirical variant of Pop called "Capitalist Realism." Since then, he has emerged as one of the essential painters of the postwar period, pioneering realism with paintings made from photographs. His work has also profoundly engaged with Neo-Expressinism and Abstract Art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Gerhard Richter is one of the most influential painters working today. Since the early 1960s, his work has received much attention and many international accolades. Richter's diverse body of work calls into question such widely held assumptions as the importance of stylistic consistency, individual artistic sensibility, spontaneous creativity, and the impact of technology and media imagery to traditional studio methods and formats. Unlike many artists today, he has explored these issues mainly through the medium of painting, challenging it to meet the demands posed by new forms of conceptual art. His varied output ranges from austere photo-based figurative realism of the early 1960s to brightly colored gestural abstractions of the early 1980s and encompasses such startling works as his brilliant cycle of black-and-white paintings of the Baader-Meinhof group, thought-provoking monochrome abstractions and banal Pop images, delicate landscapes and intimate portraits. As an artist, Richter has assumed a critical distance from vanguardists and conservatives alike regarding what painting should be; and the result has been a vital renewal of painting itself." This book accompanies the first comprehensive exhibition of the seventy-year-old German artist's paintings ever to appear in New York and includes beautiful color plates and duotones of some two hundred canvases in a broad representation of his forty years of painting. In addition, this volume contains a substantial recent interview with Richter, a chronology, selected bibliography, and comprehensive exhibition history. The retrospective this book accompanies was organized by Robert Storr, Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. After its showing in New York, this extraordinary exhibition will be seen in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D. C.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal