Gerhard Richter
Richter was born in 1932 in the height of the war years. He is painter inspired by the uneasy relationship between painting and photographs. ‘Sailors’ is part of a war series that he painted in the 60s. The piece has 7 sailors depicted. It was taken from the newspaper and it was one of the first photographs of World War II he remembers seeing as a young boy. The thematic ideas that underpin the work are the elements of chance and realism and abstraction.
Much of Richter’s work is influenced by the abstract expression era and minimalism that came to light in the 20th century. . Richter has a lifelong fascination with the power of images. He works with photographs and distorts them to communicate other feelings, emotions and meaning within the work. Most of what he paints comes from images he finds in newspaper. He likes working from photographers, especially when it came to the series of these war paintings because he says, “a photograph doesn’t change, it is absolute and in a way is self-governing.”
The greys blacks and whites communicate a surrealistic point of view. It is mysterious yet delicate. The people in the photograph are cryptic ad unnerving with the way Richter has painted the piece. I like this piece as it has a sense of eeriness and I like the idea of images having their own story to tell. Personally I think the meaning of this piece is that photographs are timeless and have a life of their own. I think it also communicates how photographs have their own meaning and only part of the story is told through the photograph.