“Art is the highest form of hope”
-Gerhard Richter
These beautiful candles, serve as a symbol of hope for the holiday season were the inspiration for this week’s art.
Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden on 9th February 1932. His parents, Horst and Hildegard Richter had a daughter, Gisela four years later. His early childhood was described by Richter as “simple, orderly and structured.” His father worked as a teacher at a secondary school in Dresden and his mother worked in a bookstore and played the piano. In 1935, the family moved to a small town called Reichenau, a drastic change for the family, which was accustomed to the vivid cultural life of the larger Dresden. It was a move which would keep the family largely safe from the coming war until the late 1930s when Richter’s father was conscripted into the German army, captured by Allied forces and detained as a prisoner of war until Germany’s defeat. In 1946, Gerhard’s father was released and returned to his family, who had again relocated, this time to Waltersdorf, a village on the Czech border. The post-war years caused difficulties for the Richter family and Gerhard suffered economic hardship and much sadness including the death of both his mother’s brothers and his mother’s sister Marianne, who suffered from mental health problems.
Gerhard left school after tenth grade and apprenticed as an advertising and stage-set painter, before studying at the Dresden Art Academy. Richter taught as a visiting professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and in 1971 became tenured professor at Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1983, Richter moved from Düsseldorf to Cologne, where he continues to live today.
Gerhard Richter’s first exhibit in the 1960s were paintings like Uncle Rudi and Aunt Marianne – working with oil paints, Richter transcribing old photographs – personal paintings that have a very haunting, unsettling quality. He would also paint from photographs taken from news stories in the newspaper.
Richter’s style changes continuously during his very successful and prolific career. He changes his style so many times, its hard to believe the same person painted all the different paintings. Gerhard says in an interview that he doesn’t want to paint the same thing over and over again – that would be boring. He says it is more interesting to be insecure, you should have a measure of uncertainty and perplexity when creating art – always asking “What can I do?”
Gerhard Richter has created many different types abstract paintings, landscapes, photography watercolour, glass installations and photo realist portraits. Gerhard Richter was inspired by Caspar Friedrich, Roy Lichtenstein and Jackson Pollock creating many varied and dynamic pieces of art. Cathedral Window located in Cologne, was unveiled in 2007. This window was destroyed during the World War II and Gerhard Richter worked without a fee to replace it. In October 2012, Richter set a new record for the highest price for a piece by a living artist when Abstraktes Bild (809-4) sold for $34 million. In February 2015, that record was broken when Abstraktes Bild (599) sold for $46.3 million.
Art in Action was inspired by Gerhard Richter’s candle series, and in particular – Candle 1 (Kerze 1) which in 1988 the band Sonic Youth used for their album cover Daydream Nation. Gerard waved his fee because he is a fan of the band. The original painting which stands over 23 feet high, is now on display in Sonic Youth’s New York City Studio.
Students created these beautiful symbols of hope by using chalk pastels to create the forms of the candles and then used a scraping technique with black acrylic paint to cover the negative space around the candles. Students then used oil pastels to make branches and berries, The flame was made using detail brushes and white acrylic paint, and once again returning to the chalk pastels to make the flames glow. Great work everyone! Take a look at a few of these examples:
