Gerhard Richter’s painting sold for $21.8 million at Sotheby’s

 

NEW YORK – A painting by renowned German painter Gerhard Richter sold for $21.8 million at one of the annual New York spring auctions at Sotheby’s on Friday.

A painting by renowned German painter Gerhard Richter sold for $21.8 million at one of the annual New York spring auctions at Sotheby’s on Friday.

The work “4,096 Colours” was the last painting in the coveted 1974 series of colour panels and was also an inspiration for the artist’s magnificent window in Cologne Cathedral, a spokeswoman for the auction house said.

Richter was inspired by the idea of the colour panels when he saw colour sample cards in a paint shop in the German city of Dusseldorf. It then dawned on him that they were perfect pictures.

He copied the colour charts, but composed the colour fields differently. Between 1966 and 1974, he painted three different series of panels, each increasing in complexity.

In October 2022, Richter’s painting “192 Colours” fetched around £18.1 million ($22.59 million) at Sotheby’s in London.

The “4,096 Colours” artwork was exhibited in Chicago, San Francisco, London’s Tate Modern and Berlin’s national museums.

The 91-year-old artist is one of the world’s most influential living artists.
Sotheby’s – as well as other rival auction houses like Christie’s – is auctioning off hundreds of works by great artists in May.

Sotheby’s said a spider sculpture by the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), created in 1996, was sold for a “record-breaking” $32.8 million.