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Gerhard Richter — Venedig (Venice)
Gerhard Richter

Venedig (Venice)

1986

This work depicts a landscape scene rendered through Richter's distinctive photo painting technique, where a photographic source is obscured and transformed through gestural abstraction. The composition shows a waterlogged terrain with reddish brown mud and shallow water, punctuated by vertical forms and vegetation. Overlaid on this naturalistic base are bold strokes of yellow, red, blue, and white that fragmentize and partially obscure the underlying imagery, creating a tension between representation and abstraction. The artist's squeegee technique creates areas of high transparency and opacity, allowing glimpses of the original photograph while simultaneously dismantling its legibility. This approach exemplifies Richter's exploration of painting's relationship to photography and the possibilities of abstraction within representational subject matter.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Overall

Notes

David Zwirner, 'Landschaften', May 7 – July 10, 2026, 537 West 20th Street, New York. Curated survey of Gerhard Richter's landscape painting from 1965 to 2005. On loan from Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden.

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About this work

Gerhard Richter, Venedig (Venice), 1986

This work depicts a landscape scene rendered through Richter's distinctive photo painting technique, where a photographic source is obscured and transformed through gestural abstraction. The composition shows a waterlogged terrain with reddish brown mud and shallow water, punctuated by vertical forms and vegetation. Overlaid on this naturalistic base are bold strokes of yellow, red, blue, and white that fragmentize and partially obscure the underlying imagery, creating a tension between representation and abstraction. The artist's squeegee technique creates areas of high transparency and opacity, allowing glimpses of the original photograph while simultaneously dismantling its legibility. This approach exemplifies Richter's exploration of painting's relationship to photography and the possibilities of abstraction within representational subject matter.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 86 x 121 cm
Year
1986
Seen at
David Zwirner Gallery, Manhattan, United States

Related themes

Modernist Painting, Photo-Painting, Chromatic Intervention, Photorealism Abstracted, Visual Fragmentation, Terrain and Water, Color Field, Gestural Abstraction, Squeegee Technique, Expressionist Mark Making, Material Process, German Contemporary Art, Post-Representational, Oil on Canvas, Abstract Landscape

More works by Gerhard Richter

Collected by

Art Institute of Chicago, Sebastián Naranjo, Kyle Stewart, Alex Capecelatro, Brittany Laques