The Tamesis
A Gerhard Richter painting from the estate of the late art dealer Marian Goodman sold at Christie’s on Wednesday night for $35.1 million, including commission. The deal is well below Richter’s record of $46.3 million set more than a decade ago.
This land, kuz (candle)The work, which went up for auction in 1982, had an estimate of $35 million to $50 million, and the highest price exceeded his current record by about $3.7 million. Before bidding, auctioneer Wang Yuge described the work as one from his “greatest series” and a “quiet message of hope.” Bids started at $22 million and seemed to rise quickly in $2 million increments, but then leveled off almost as quickly. After less than two minutes of anticlimactic bidding, the painting, which had a third-party guarantee, was sold. Sold to a quiet auction room for a hammer price of $30 million.
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The Christie’s auction article describes Richter’s “Kerze” series as “a discreet series that combines past and present, memory and reality.” The series began after the first “Abstraktes Bild” painting was shown at Documenta 7 that year, and also reflected “the artist’s personal experience with the devastation of World War II and its aftermath.” The painting also reflects the art historical tradition of still life painting, in which candles are often depicted as having just been extinguished, suggesting the passage of time and the brevity of life. These images are also used to symbolize faith, hope, enlightenment, divine presence and knowledge.
“At first it was just to look pretty,” Richter said of the series decades later, “but then a politically charged statement was also found in the pictures… [as] Candles have always been an important symbol of East Germany as a silent protest against the regime… It was a strange feeling to see a small photo of a candle transformed into something completely different, something I had never imagined. ”
Goodman represented Richter for decades until he left her gallery for Zwirner in 2022. Goodman purchased the work directly from the artist in 1989, and she has owned it for nearly 40 years. Goodman died in January at the age of 97. It shows a simple white candle in a white sconce resting on the windowsill of the artist’s studio; as it sways to the left, its flame appears to be blown by the breeze. The painting was first shown in 1982 at an exhibition at the Max-Ulrich Hetzler Gallery in Stuttgart, Germany.
“No one bought any of them,” Richter told reporters. new york times 2002 Early exhibition on “Kerze” paintings. “And they’re very cheap. Now they sell for a fortune. But they’re dated and unexpected. People know my abstracts and landscapes. Then candles came along. So maybe they’re necessary. But that’s my argument too. You shouldn’t do religious symbols. When people attack religious symbols too much, that prompts me to react.”
While buyers may not have seen the appeal of Richter’s candle paintings early on, Goodman did. Goodman once told The New York Times that Richter was “kind of drowned out by these loud expressionist voices.” guardian The Neo-Expressionist milieu out of which the series was born. “So I wrote him a letter and told him how much I loved the job and that maybe I could make a difference. And then I went to Dusseldorf to meet him in 1984, and it all started from there.” (Interestingly, though they eventually warmed to each other, Richter told new yorker In 2004, the first meeting was awkward, “In the end I said I’m sorry, I have to work.”)
Gerhard Richter’s 18. June 2009 (2009) shows the artist and his long-time dealer Marian Goodman.
Christie’s
The just-sold painting is one of eight Richter works being auctioned at the Goodman Estate as part of Christie’s “Marian Richter and the 21st Century Evening Sale.” (The auction house kicked off the evening with a 12-lot sale, featuring items from art news Top 200 Collector Henry S. McNeil, Jr.
Richter’s auction record was set at Sotheby’s London in 2015, when his 1986 painting Abstract pictures(599) Sold for $46.3 million. In terms of its market, the Abstraktes Bild series accounts for the majority of the highest sales, with nine series occupying the top ten. Approximately 37 Richter works have sold for more than $20 million at auction.
His second most expensive work is the 1968 Merlin Cathedral Square (Piazza Duomo, Milan) forms part of his earliest mature work, when he made photorealistic reproductions of various found black-and-white images, with a slight blurring effect that destabilized the canvas. In May 2013, the work sold for $37.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York, setting a new record for the artist and briefly holding the title of the most expensive work by a living artist at auction. (Jeff Koons’ Balloon dog (orange) In November 2013, it sold for $58.4 million, easily breaking that record. )
On the other hand, his “Keze” works achieved much lower prices at auction. The two most valuable of these works barely made it into the auction house’s top 50. The 1982 version sold for $16.5 million in 2011, and the 1983 version sold for $15.8 million in 2008; both works were sold at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses in London respectively.
