Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, born in Dresden, trained in socialist realism in East Germany before fleeing to the West in 1961 and studying at the Düsseldorf Academy. With Sigmar Polke and Konrad Lueg he launched Capitalist Realism in 1963. His blurred photo paintings, colour charts, grey monochromes, candles, landscapes and, from the late 1970s, squeegee Abstrakte Bilder question how painting can represent reality after photography. The 1988 October 18, 1977 cycle at MoMA and the Birkenau paintings address German history. Richter is the most traded living European painter, with a deep market from editions and overpainted photographs to eight-figure abstractions. His auction record remains Abstraktes Bild (599), sold in London in 2015.