Gerhard Richter (* 9 February 1932 in Dresden) is a German painter, sculptor and photographer. Richter has created both abstract and photorealistic paintings, as well as photographs and glass works. His works are among the most expensive of any living artist on the art market. Richter's works have been recognised since the 1980s as a "unique and remarkable artistic experience". As a polymorphous painter, he sometimes deals with figurative themes, but also produces abstract works.
After his first training as a painter, he was accepted on his second candidacy to the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where he received a master's degree, which enabled him to benefit from a workshop for three years. His interest in abstract painting, especially Jackson Pollock and Lucio Fontana, motivated his move to the West in 1961. Finally he settled in Düsseldorf, studied with Karl-Otto Götz and got to know Sigmar Polke, Blinky Palermo and the future gallery owner Konrad Fischer.
In 1962 he painted the first work in his catalog: Tisch, an oil painting that was painted from a press photo. Both an everyday photographer and a painter, he reproduces the motifs of his photos on canvas. Landscapes, still lifes and intimate scenes thus shape a work, which, however, essentially consists of abstract works, which he also calls abstract images without exception. The documentary sources of Gerhard Richter's works: press photos, his own photos, the amateur photos he collects, were brought together in an atlas that was first exhibited in 1972.
In addition to his personal exhibitions, he works as a teacher at various art schools, particularly in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada). He is also the teacher of the artist Pia Fries.
He has received numerous awards, including the Young Western Art in Recklinghausen in 1967, the Arnold Bode Prize at the Documenta in Kassel in 1981, the Oskar Kokoschka Prize in Vienna in 1985, and the Wolf Prize for the Arts in Israel 1994/95 and the Praemium Imperiale in Japan in 1997.