Gerhard Richter (B. 1932): Frost (1)
oil on canvas, 144.8 x 100 cm. (57 x 39 3/8 in.)
Painted in 1989
HKD 48,000,000 – 68,000,000/USD 6,200,000 – 8,700,000
Masterpieces by Richter and Wou-Ki at Christie’s On July 2020, Christie’s Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sales will feature two important paintings by Gerhard Richter & Zao Wou-Ki – legendary artists of the 20th Century who each made significant contributions to the history of abstraction in the postwar period.]]>
May 23, 2020, source: Christie’s
Coinciding with the major loan exhibition of “Gerhard Richter: Painting After All” at The Met Breuer in New York this Spring, Christie’s is honored to be offering the work “Frost (1)”” (HKD 48,000,000 – 68,000,000 / USD 6,200,000 – 8,700,000) in Hong Kong. Dating from the finest period of Gerhard Richter’s ground-breaking abstract work, Frost (1)” is a dazzling example of the artist’s Abstraktes Bild paintings. In these career-defining canvases, Richter examined the fundamental nature of abstract painting, questioning the very essence of the postwar art historical canon, and in the process creating some of the most celebrated works of the last fifty years. First shown at a major exhibition at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, in 1989, thise painting exemplifies Richter’s practice of continually laying down and then subsequently scraping off layers of paint with a squeegee, resulting in a fractured surface which evokes the alluring effect of light reflecting off a heavily frosted or snowy surface.
On the same evening, another iconic important work “18.11.66” by Zao Wou-Ki (HKD 68,000,000 – 88,000,000/ USD 8,800,000 – 12,000,000.) will make its debut at auction. Painted in 1966, “18.11.66” is a work from Zao’s Expressionist Hurricane Period, when his compositions were at their most energetic and gestural. The work’sIts dramatic horizontal composition demonstrates a strong balance of light and dark, with multiple hues of blue, as well as richly colored details, giving the work a rich depth and dimensionality and evoking elemental images of wind, water and waves.
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Gerhard Richter’s ‘Abstraktes Bild’ to be auctioned at Sotheby’s London (February 2016)
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