Hubertus Butin

Gerhard Richter is one of the most famous painters of our time, worldwide. His fascinating visual spheres are characterized by a unique originality and quality, in which the abstract and the figural intertwine and permeate each other. This extensive volume of pictures concentrates entirely upon the theme of landscape in Richter’s oeuvre. Through this genre, to which Richter has remained loyal for more than sixty years, it is possible to see more than a development in the artist’s painting style. There is also a perceptible, genuine independence in many of the works, which makes him one of the most remarkable artists of our day. This book adds to the understanding of the significance and pictorial essence of Richter’s art, opening up current insights into the theme of nature and landscape in the twenty-first century.

For the subscription edition of Gerhard Richter's (born 1932) Schriften und Interviews, published by Insel Verlag in 1993 in an edition of 100 copies, the artist drew a small "self-portrait" in pencil on the back of a portrait photograph at the front of the book. Enthused by this work, between September and December 1993 he produced a further 94 signed and dated self-portraits on loose sheets of paper, which are published here for the first time. Seen together as a series, Richter's exercise becomes truly impressive: despite the consistency of conception, each instance has an individual formal and aesthetic appearance. These pencil drawings form a series of variations whose aspiration is not the gradual approach toward a perfected final outcome, but rather the serial testing of different but equally weighted possibilities of representation within limited specifications.