Tilman Spengler

In 1970 in Munich Gerhard Richter met Brigid Berlin alias Brigid Polk, Andy Warhol’s legendary muse and enfant terrible of New York’s high society. This meeting gave rise to Richter’s important “Brigid Polk” series, based on Polaroid self-portraits by the eccentric artist: a dialogue between America and Europe, photography and painting, artist and muse. The series about Brigid Polk is an important record of Gerhard Richter’s photo paintings. It is exemplary of his struggle for a new self-concept of painting in dialogue with photography. This volume is the first to pay extensive tribute to this multifaceted series and traces the history of its creation, which revolved Heiner Friedrich, an important gallery owner in Munich. The personal reminiscences of those who were present at the time are particularly evocative of the avant-garde art scene of the 1970s.