Gerhard Richter Portraits.

Betty,1977

selbstportrait, 1996

My understanding of Gerhard Richter's work is that he had a very unconventional approach to portraiture. The visit to the National Portrait Gallery showed that the work that was on show was paintings that he had made mostly from Newspaper magazines in the 60's. He also had a few private collections in which he had painted of family members, or from people he associated with, from his circle of work and life. i found most of his work very fascinating because it left me with a lot of unanswered question in which i had to make up my own stories and answers to try and understand each individual painting. The reason why i felt like this is because Gerhard Richter obscured most of his work the reason being that he believed that A portrait must not express anything of the sitters 'soul', essence or character', this was almost a portraiture code he lived by because he followed it up in most of his work, he backed it up.

The way that Gerhard Richter worked left us as observers with some questions and also makes us question the relationships between the people blurred in his portraits just like he did. he is also teaching us that we have a unique way of viewing the world. There is some of his personal paintings in which he did not obscure the sitter, maybe this is because these where people that meant a great deal to him and he wanted to show the world their personalities and characteristics. An example for this is the painting titled Betty, 1977. in this piece his daughter is in focus and the painting is in color and its a very vibrant portrait. The pictures above the page are some examples of his work. i have chosen a self portrait of him because it compliments the saying he mentioned " a portrait must not express anything of the sitters 'soul' essence or character."

http://www.gerhard-richter.com

http://www.gerhard-richter.com/biography/work/

http://www.gerhard-richter.com/exhibitions/exhibition.php?exID=581