art | Gerhard Richter: Why He Erases What He Has Already Painted

Few artists command as much quiet reverence as Gerhard Richter. His current major retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris has prompted us to revisit our earlier reflection on his work, German Art After 1960, at SFMOMA.

 

It happened while I was hurrying between floors in a vast museum. With several exhibitions running at once, there was little time to be distracted by anything outside my plan. Yet through an open wall, I caught sight of a painting—its hazy atmosphere, a sense of freedom or even quiet provocation lingering within it.

Almost instinctively, I moved closer. From its pulsing energy, I assumed it must be the work of a young artist. But when I checked the label, I was surprised to find it was by Gerhard Richter, who had painted this portrait of a fellow artist in 1971.Gerhard Richter (b. 1932, Dresden) is now 93, one of the most respected living artists in the world and a defining figure of postwar German art.

Gerhard Richter, Brigid Polk, 1971 (CR 309), oil on linen; 39 1/2 x 49 1/2 in. (100.33 x 125.73 cm) The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art  © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025)

 

The Photo Paintings 

Among his many experiments across styles and media, the photo paintings—based on photographs clipped from newspapers and magazines—stand out as one of Richter’s most recognizable series. In these works, he paints directly from photographs, then adds thick, gestural brushstrokes across the finished image, blurring its clarity and softening its form. Why blur what was already complete?

Gerhard Richter, Dorf (Village), 1988 (CR 663-4), oil on linen; 26 3/8 x 36 in. (66.99 x 91.44 cm) The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025). Photograph: Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London 

 

“Through a blurred canvas, one can see more than through an image in perfect focus.”—Gerhard Richter

Between Ideology and Freedom

Having grown up under Hitler’s Germany, Richter was trained in East Germany, where he painted socialist realist murals promoting the ideology of the state. Shortly before the Berlin Wall went up, he fled to West Germany, already aware—through a few earlier visits—of its broader artistic possibilities. When he entered the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the early 1960s, the art world was alive with Abstract Expressionism, Informel, Pop Art, Minimalism, and Fluxus.

Perhaps weary of the ideological rigidity of the East—or simply questioning what art could mean after such extremes—Richter refused to belong to any school. Rejecting both dogma and tradition, he turned deliberately to painting, a medium many then considered outdated.

Gerhard Richter, Gymnastik (Gymnastics), 1967 (CR 156), oil on linen; 43 3/8 x 31 1/2 in. (110.17 x 80.01 cm) The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025). Photograph: Katherine Du Tiel 

Gerhard Richter, Familie Ruhnau (The Ruhnau Family), 1969 (CR 197-2), oil on linen; 51 x 78 3/4 in. (129.54 x 200.03 cm) The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025). Photograph: Katherine Du Tiel

 

“Nothing is good or bad in itself. Only circumstances or our will make it so. Therefore, no tradition can ever be absolute.”—Gerhard Richter

Seeing Through the Blur

It was around this time that Richter began his photo paintings. Fascinated by the immediacy of photography, he started translating photos into paint. Yet what makes his works distinctly his own is that final act of overpainting—the heavy, sweeping brushwork that obscures the image. The resulting grayish blur frees the viewer from the factual precision of photography, allowing instead for intuition, memory, and emotion.

Still, if one tries to interpret, the haziness may reflect his own sense of ambiguity, displacement, imperfection, or even longing.

 

 Gerhard Richter, Seestück (leicht bewölkt) (Seascape (Slightly Cloudy), 1969 (CR 239-2), oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, (c) Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025)

 

Consider Brigid Polk (1971), the painting that first caught my eye. Its subject, the American artist Brigid Polk, was infamous for her public acts of exhibitionism. Richter met her in Germany and was struck by her spontaneity and freedom. Interestingly, compared with earlier works like Portrait Schniewind (1964), a subdued, gray portrait of an art collector, or Administrative Building (1964), depicting a postwar government structure, Brigid Polk feels softer, even sharper—as if the artist’s own fascination with her liveliness came through in his brush.

The Reader

Of all his photo paintings, the one that moves many viewers—including myself—the most is Lesende (Reader) (1994), a portrait of his wife. The work possesses such precision and delicacy that it nearly dissolves the boundary between photograph and painting. In it, she stands with her hair neatly tied back, absorbed in a newspaper—not as an object of information, but as a living subject. A gentle light surrounds her head and neck, visible and tender.

Here, the uncertainty that lingers in many of his other works is replaced by a quiet, solid beauty.

Gerhard Richter, Lesende (Reader), 1994 (CR 804), oil on canvas, 72 x 102 cm. Collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Purchase through the gifts of Mimi and Peter Haas and Helen and Charles Schwab, and the Accessions Committee Fund: Barbara and Gerson Bakar, Collectors Forum, Evelyn D. Haas, Elaine McKeon, Byron R. Meyer, Modern Art Council, Christine and Michael Murray, Nancy and Steven Oliver, Leanne B. Roberts, Madeleine H. Russell, Danielle and Brooks Walker, Jr., Phyllis C. Wattis, and Pat and Bill Wilson © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025)

 

Beyond the Visible   

Even so, Richter’s signature softness—his blurred, quiet touch—reminds us that painting is not reality but a construct of perception, an illusion born of human thought. Yet through that illusion, we find comfort and hope. What his paintings ultimately reveal is not ideology, but something more trustworthy: light, atmosphere, and the energy of a moment—things unseen but deeply felt.

Just as a new season begins with a light breeze, what is invisible is sometimes the most certain. Perhaps the artist sought to make truth more visible by erasing what could be seen.

Gerhard Richter, Zwei Kerzen (Two Candles), 1982 (CR 498-1), oil on canvas; 48 x 40 in. (121.92 x 101.6 cm) The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025)

 

Richter, along with fellow postwar masters such as Anselm Kiefer and Sigmar Polke, can be seen in the ongoing exhibition German Art After 1960 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Meanwhile, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is presenting a major retrospective, Gerhard Richter, from October 17, 2025, through March 2, 2026. The show traces over sixty years of his evolving practice in a rare chronological survey.

Installation view of the exhibition Gerhard Richter, Gallery 5, Level 1, Room 1987–1995: Dark Reflection, on view from October 17, 2025, to March 2, 2026, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025) Photo: © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage

Installation view of the exhibition Gerhard Richter, Gallery 10, Level 2, Room 2009–2017: Pictorial Elegies, on view from October 17, 2025, to March 2, 2026, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025) Photo: © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Marc Domage

Words by JODE Contemporary | Originally published in 2018, translated and reintroduced in 2025 on the occasion of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s retrospective exhibition Gerhard Richter | Cover: Gerhard Richter, Selbstportrait [Self-Portrait], 1996 (CR 836-1) | All artworks © Gerhard Richter 2025 (16102025)