Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
Bouquet (P3)
numbered '410/500' (on the reverse); unsigned
Diasec mounted chromogenic print on aluminium
23⅝ x 34⅞in. (60 x 88.5cm.)
Executed in 2014, this facsimile object is number four hundred and ten from an edition of five hundred

Provenance:
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

λ Please see our Conditions of Sale for definitions of cataloguing symbols.

Specialist Notes:

The present work refers to Gerhard Richter’s 2009 painting Bouquet, where the artist has deliberately obfuscated a still-life of a small bundle of flowers, through the characteristic drags and pulls of his squeegee. ‘A picture like this is painted in different layers, separated by intervals of time. The first layer mostly represents the background, which has a photographic, illusionistic look to it, though done without using photograph. This first, smooth, soft-edged paint surface is like a finished picture; but, after a while, I decide that I understand it or have seen enough of it, and in the next stage of painting, I partly destroy it, partly add to it; and so it goes on at intervals, ‘til there is nothing more to do and the picture is finished’ (G. Richter quoted in U. Wilmes in ‘Gerhard Richter: One Moment in Time’, in Gerhard Richter Large Abstractions, exh. cat., Museum Ludwig, Germany, 2009, p. 138).

Part of a collaboration between Richter and Heni Productions to produce limited edition prints, the work forms part of a series of eleven editions numbered P1 to P11, supervised and approved by the artist and which were co-published with museums and institutions.

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.