Exhibition at the Gerhard Richter Archive provides insight into the creative process

With a new exhibition, the Gerhard Richter Archive in Dresden is providing a rare insight into the artist's creative process at the Albertinum until September 8. According to director Dietmar Elger, the exhibition will mainly feature material and works from the archive's own collection, supplemented by loans. "They are almost all graphic works", which Richter created as samples, variations and drawings, for example, he said at the opening on Friday. Also on display are two brand new editions that the artist made together with the archive in 2023 and which are being sold for the benefit of acquisitions and exhibitions.

According to Elger, the portfolio "Canary Landscapes II" and very different samples of it will also be presented for the first time. "They are very different in terms of color, darker or lighter, the frames have a different shape." The edition was a donation from the Museis Saxonicis Usui association - Friends of the Dresden State Art Collections - last year and the occasion for the show, which documents the work process from the photograph to the painting to the edition. This reveals the diversity of Richter's work, who sees himself as a "picture maker".

The Gerhard Richter Archive was founded in 2006 and is filling up with the support of the 92-year-old from the city on the Elbe, one of the most important contemporary artists. In collaboration with Richter's studio in Cologne, director Dietmar Elger and two employees are compiling all the material relating to his artistic life - from posters, catalogs and books to letters, invitation cards and newspaper reports to artworks by and about Richter.