Irene Sieberger
Senior Specialist
Lot 8*,AR
DANIEL RICHTER(B. 1962)Der alte Expressionist
2009
2009
24 March 2022, 16:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £45,250 inc. premium
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DANIEL RICHTER (B. 1962)
Der alte Expressionist
2009
signed and dated 2009 on the reverse; titled on the overlap
oil on canvas
35.2 by 45.1 cm.
13 7/8 by 17 3/4 in.
2009
signed and dated 2009 on the reverse; titled on the overlap
oil on canvas
35.2 by 45.1 cm.
13 7/8 by 17 3/4 in.
Footnotes
Provenance
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (DR/K 576)
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2009
Exhibited
Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts, Oh La La, 2009
There is an aching beauty and pulsating expressionism that resides at the heart of Daniel Richter's practice. In Der alte Expressionist, this feels palpably close to the surface as the artist enacts a vivid dialogue with the phantoms of history that manifest in his canvases.
Gestural and intense, Richter has revived a narrative form of painting that conjures the sublime yet remains tethered to the social and political currents of the day, speaking to the work of Peter Doig, Adrian Ghenie, Neo Rauch, and Tal R. In the present work, the rebellious psychedelia, musicality, and symbolist imagery that Richter has become so acclaimed for is executed over an elegant scale, representing a supremely collectible work by one of the most in-demand contemporary painters.
Richter stands at the cutting edge of a German avant-gardism that spans generations of post-war Neoexpressionist painters including Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, and Markus Lüpertz. Embedded in this influential, energetic milieu – studying under Werner Büttner at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg from 1992–1996, before working as a technician in Albert Oehlen's studio – Richter has developed a style that is captivatingly unique and is in the present work suffused with a range of brushmarks and sweeps of paint that is testament to his generational talent.
Taking Emil Nolde as its subject – the 'other expressionist' of its title – Der alte Expressionist is a vivid and enchanting painting that humorously captures the spirit of early Expressionism seemingly as a character. The spectral presence feels at once a menace and a transhistorical embrace, a contemporary painting with the earie Romanticism of Kirchner or Munch.
Der alte Expressionist is a sterling work from one of the most prominent passages of Richter's practice that engages deeply with his touchstones and inspirators. With pieces held in international museum collections that include the MoMA, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Richter's paintings are as beautiful as they are timeless, and his legacy as one of the principal painters of the last three decades is without question.
