Gerhard Richter Forty years of painting

This exhibition catalog is the best compilation in English of information and critical approaches to one of the most important German artists of the last 40 years. It contains a critical assessment of Richter's entire career by curator Storr; an interview with the artist also by Storr; a thorough chronology that includes facts of Richter's career and contemporary events in the worlds of art and politics; a select bibliography; exhibition history; and 138 superb color illustrations for all the paintings in the retrospective exhibition and for comparative works of art. As both an artist and a curator, Storr (Museum of Modern Art, New York) brings a poetic assessment to the work that amplifies his measured historical presentation and gives added insight into Richter's paintings. Contained in Storr's essay--and extended in the chronology--is the clearest exposition of the complex history of German artistic movements after WW II available in English, an important component to the book that is certain to be mined by future students of the art of this period. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. J. T. Paoletti Wesleyan University

With this catalog of the first major U.S. retrospective of the remarkably diverse paintings of the German-born Richter, Storr (senior curator of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, NY; Gerhard Richter: October 18, 1977) sets out to increase our understanding of Richter to parallel that of American contemporary post-abstract expressionists (among them, Jasper Johns and Robert Ryman). Storr's fascinating introductory and biographical essay frames the historical, art, and personal movements that have provoked Richter's exploration of painting's place in a world rent by World War II, photography, and abstraction. Among other insights, Storr hits on the distancing discomfort of studying Richter's photo-based paintings when he cites the painter's "calculated discretion" in dealing with catastrophic subject matter, such as aspects of the Holocaust. Over 200 color and duotone images, gorgeously reproduced, firmly document the full range of this vital artist, encompassing everything from his intense, colorful abstractions to his gray-scale photo-reproductions to his highly realistic portraits and still lifes, and more. An interview with Richter fills out the book. This will be the standard on Richter for some time to come, and it is essential for all serious art collections. Rebecca Miller, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.