Abstraktes Bild

Gerhard Richter created this Abstraktes Bild in 1986, a monumental canvas standing over 300 cm tall. The painting showcases his radical squeegee technique, where industrial tools replace traditional brushes. Richter drags, scrapes, and smears layers of oil paint across the surface in rapid movements.

The process merges control with chance. Richter described it as "losing control" compared to brush painting, a central element of his artistic philosophy. The squeegee creates richly textured fields of color that both obscure and reveal underlayers, with each mark capturing the instantaneous moment of creation.

In February 2015, the painting sold at Sotheby's London for $46.3 million, establishing Richter as the most expensive living European artist. The same work had sold for just $607,500 in 1999, demonstrating the dramatic appreciation of his market over sixteen years.