afumi inc Gerhard Richter, one of the greatest artists in art history, continues to redefine the concept of art. Fondation Louis Vuitton’s largest solo retrospective in history will begin today, October 17, 2025.

【afumi inc】 Gerhard Richter, one of the greatest artists in art history, continues to redefine the very concept of art. The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s largest solo retrospective in its history begins today, October 17, 2025. ​ Image
URL: afumi inc Press release: October 17, 2025 To Members of the Press Gerhard Richter, one of the greatest artists in art history, continues to redefine the very concept of art. The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s largest solo retrospective in history opens today, October 17, 2025. FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON | GERHARD RICHTER EXHIBITION | 2025.10.17 – 2026.03.07
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From October 17, 2025 to March 2, 2026, the Fondation Louis Vuitton will present a major retrospective of Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential artists in the contemporary art world, born in Dresden in 1932. In 1961, Richter fled East Germany for Düsseldorf in West Germany, before settling in Cologne, where he continues to live and work today. Following groundbreaking solo retrospectives of some of the greatest masters of 20th and 21st century art—Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, and David Hockney—the Fondation Louis Vuitton is dedicating its largest-ever space to Gerhard Richter, one of the most important and internationally acclaimed artists of his generation. The Fondation Louis Vuitton’s inaugural exhibition in 2014 showcased Richter’s works from the museum’s collection. Now, to celebrate Richter’s artistic career, this solo retrospective, unprecedented in both scale and chronology, will feature a total of 275 works, including oil paintings, glass and steel sculptures, pencil and ink drawings, watercolors, and overpainted photographs, created between 1962 and 2025. This exhibition also marks the first time that a comprehensive overview of Gerhard Richter’s creative work spanning more than 60 years has been presented in an exhibition format. Richter has always been drawn to both subject matter and painting as a form of expression—a realm of experimentation in which he continually pushes boundaries and refuses to be categorized into any style. His studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts encouraged him to confront traditional genres such as still life, portraiture, landscape, and history painting. His desire to reinterpret these genres from a contemporary perspective is at the heart of this exhibition. Regardless of the subject, Richter never paints nature or scenes directly in front of him. All images are filtered through media such as photography or drawing, before being reconstructed into works that create new contexts. In the process, he has continued to explore an astonishing variety of genres and techniques within the realm of painting, using brushes, palette knives, squeegees, and more. This exhibition will comprehensively showcase Richter’s continuing creative trajectory, focusing on significant works from 1962 through 2017, when he decided to step away from painting. Each section will cover approximately ten years, tracing the chronological development of Richter’s painterly vision, shaped by both discontinuities and continuities throughout his career, from his early photographic-based works to his later abstract paintings. Gallery 1: 1962-1970 – Painting after photographs.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-0ecd8f88c32c2342aed16d0c46aadf35-2400×1923.jpg Gerhard Richter, Tisch [Table], 1962 (CR 1), Oil on Canvas, 90,2 x 113 cm, Private Collection, Photo credit: Jennifer Bornstein, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 2: 1971-1975 – Questioning
representation. 48 Portraits, created for the 1972 Venice Biennale, is a work of both conceptual and technical excellence, marking the beginning of a new chapter in Richter’s diverse explorations of the nature of painting. From his signature blurring, the gradual copying and deconstruction of The Annunciation after Titian, the arbitrary and random arrangement of colors in his large-scale color charts, to the refusal of representation and representation in his gray paintings, Richter posed fundamental questions about the nature of painting.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-05ed20c64560485b13bcfc4c0619ab03-1983×1237.jpg Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian [Annunciation after Titian], 1973 (CR 343-1), Oil on Canvas, 125 x 200 cm, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Joseph H., Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1994, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 4: 1976-1986 Exploring abstraction. During this decade, Richter established the foundations of his distinctive approach to abstract expressionism through the development of watercolor studies into oil paintings, his examination of painted surfaces, and his practice of using the brushstroke itself as the subject of paintings such as “Brushstrokes (Red)” and “Brushstrokes (Blue).” During this same period, he continued to explore more traditional subject matter, including his daughter Betty’s first portrait, landscapes, and still lifes.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-49679320a4b230c2ef0982db34e81550-1932×1800.png Gerhard Richter, Kerze [Candle], 1982 (CR 511-1), Oil on Canvas, 95 x 90 cmCollection Institut d’art contemporain,Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1994, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 5: 1987-1995 Sombre reflections. Motivated by a deep skepticism toward institutional change and social change, Richter created “October 18, 1977″—the series is on special loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York—the only series in his career to explicitly address contemporary German history. During this same period, he also produced a series of striking, yet somber, abstract works. He also returned to the subject of his early family paintings, producing the “S with Child” series.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-33e8ad5b0f8dbd666efd1745dc70dd75-1632×1800.png Gerhard Richter, , Gegenüberstellung 2 [Confrontation 2], 1988 (CR 671-2)Oil on Canvas, 112 x 102 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, gift of Philip Johnson, and acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (all by exchange); Enid A. Haupt Fund; Nina and Gordon Bunshaft Bequest Fund; and gift of Emily Rauh Pulitzer, 1995, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 6: 1983-2008 On Paper. For Richter, drawing is a creative medium that cannot be incorporated into a controlled process; his improvisational drawings are the polar opposite of painting. In the 1980s, Richter began working on multiple drawings, culminating in a series of 45 drawings in 1999. These works were first exhibited in a retrospective of his drawings at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur that same year. In parallel with his drawings, Richter created vibrant watercolors. His spontaneous actions, shifting between deliberate composition and uncontrollable chance—a technique he would later develop in his paintings—were already in practice during this period. These experiments continued sporadically into the 1990s, but eventually developed into oil paintings on paper and photographs. Overpainted Photographs explores the relationship between photographic images and the materiality of paint—the correspondences, or discrepancies, of form and color. The private, introverted nature of the snapshots is neutralized by the application of paint, quietly blurring the boundaries between photography and painting.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-22d7213ffc335112ceaefe4632b32005-3900×2740.jpg Gerhard Richter, 9.3.08 Grauwald, 2008 Lacquer on photograph, 12,5 x 18.5 cm, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Photo credit: Primae / Louis Bourjac, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 7: 1992-1999 – Moments of reflection. In 1996, Richter’s daughter, Ella Maria, was born, bringing new impetus to his life. The family moved into a new home and studio in Hahnwald, a suburb of Cologne, while Richter continued to maintain a studio in central Cologne to work on several bodies of work simultaneously. During this period, Richter was working not on single abstract paintings, but on series characterized by structure and tonality. Alongside these powerful works, Richter also produced intimate, domestic paintings based on photographs, including his first self-portraits. From inconspicuous motifs found in the everyday, Richter creates metaphors that suggest a somber view of reality.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-d3356b7d93aaf4df8971bb6ba30ad593-3900×2735.jpg Gerhard Richter, Lesende [Reader], 1994 (CR804), Oil on Canvas, 72 x 102 cm, Collection San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtPurchase through the gifts of Mimi and Peter Haas, and Helen and Charles Schwab, and theAccessions, Committee Fund: Barbara and Gerson Bakar, Collectors Forum, Evelyn D. Haas, Elaine McKeon, Byron R., Meyer, Modern Art Council, Christine and Michael Murray, Nancy and Steven Oliver, Leanne B. Roberts,Madeleine H. Russell, Danielle and Brooks Walker, Jr., Phyllis C. Wattis, and Pat and Bill Wilsonc, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 9: 2001-2013 – New perspectives in painting. In 2002, Richter was commissioned to design stained-glass windows for the south wing of Cologne Cathedral, which inspired him to undertake a new endeavor. After painting the series “Sillikart” and “Cage,” he began working with glass as a medium. Richter began to create artworks not as a painter, but as a painter himself. For his work, Window of Cologne Cathedral, unveiled in 2007, he used a computer program with random numbers to create a chance process by distributing 72 colors across over 10,000 pixels measuring 9.6 cm square.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-0e41cdfcba62629538177151562850b7-2806×1278.png Gerhard Richter, Strip, 2011 (CR 921-2), Digital print on paper between, aluminum and Perspex (Diasec), 200 x 440 cm, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Photo credit: Primae / Louis Bourjac, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025)
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-9910fc37b17503d5a5f2a324ec06da8d-1788×1800.png Gerhard Richter, Cage (6), 2006 (CR 897-6), Oil on Canvas, 300 x 300 cm, Private Collection, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 10: 2014-2017 – Pictorial elegies. After a hiatus of several years, Richter returned to painting in 2014. The first subject he tackled was Germany’s past. For many years, he had been attempting to create works based on the Holocaust but had struggled to find an adequate way to express the overwhelming emotions he experienced. The “Birkenau” series began with the only surviving photographs taken by inmates at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. These works were ultimately completed as four abstract paintings. These works were exhibited first in Germany, then in the UK, and in a 2020 Richter retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Photographic versions of “Birkenau” are on permanent display at the Reichstag in Berlin and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. In 2016, the Gerhard Richter Foundation was established to permanently exhibit his major works in Berlin and Dresden. Between 2015 and 2017, Richter produced a series of abstract paintings that captivated viewers with their expressive power. Following another period of silence, he declared his artistic career complete.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-6acb4576bdf31b6ca082cd71fcef946d-3900×2600.jpg Gerhard Richter, Birkenau, 2014, Oil on Canvas, 260 x 200 cm each, Neue Nationalgalerie, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin,loan from Gerhard Richter Art Foundation, Photo: David Brandt, courtesy Gerhard Richter Archive Dresden, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) Gallery 11: 2017-2025 – Continuing to work. Since declaring his painting career complete, Richter has focused on drawing and creating works for public spaces. In 2016, Richter completed a pavilion on the island of Teshima in Japan, featuring “14 Glass Panels for Teshima, Dedicated to Uselessness.” This was followed in 2018 by “Two Gray Pairs of Mirrors for a Pendulum” at the Dominican Church in Münster. In 2025, two large-scale reliefs will be installed in a building in New York designed by Norman Foster. Instead of working in front of a wall, Richter now works at his desk. Each drawing is dated, allowing the artist to trace his creative process. Rather than developing serially, they emerge in small clusters over the course of days or weeks. In these new works on paper, Richter explores the dynamics and possibilities of drawing as a medium. He employs line drawing, frottage, and tonal techniques, sometimes experimenting with his own unique techniques. The subconscious movement of the hand takes on an even more important role than ever before. Richter sometimes uses colored ink, playfully dripping it onto the paper. Responding to the shapes that emerge by chance, he redraws the lines using tools such as rulers and compasses. Gerhard Richter continues to live and work in Cologne.
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-a625b88ddb2ce7c7e691e4601a23acc7-3900×3162.jpg Gerhard Richter, 26 Zeichnungen [26 Drawings], 2023, Solvent, graphite, and crayon on paper, 14.9 x 20.6 cm (each), Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, Photo credit: Primae / Louis Bourjac, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025)
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-b260b5738f417bbdfc8d6cb61e3cec7b-2160×1796.png Gerhard Richter, 3.8.2023 (2), 2023, Solvent, graphite, and crayon on paper, 21.6 x 25.9 cm, Private collection, Photo: Georgios
Michaloudis, farbanalyse, Koln, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025)
https://prcdn.freetls.fastly.net/release_image/33811/46/33811-46-c8e9b7226ae799680ab1a0f2ba24ec9a-2540×1800.png Gerhard Richter, 10.7.2024, 2024, Solvent, graphite, and crayon on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm, Private collection, Photo credit: Georgios Michaloudis, farbanalyse, Koln, (C) Gerhard Richter 2025 (18102025) FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON Bernard Arnault President, Administrator Jean-Paul Claverie Advisor to the President Suzanne Page Artistic Director Sophie DurrlemanExecutive Director Curatorial team ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Suzanne Page GUEST CURATORS Dieter Schwarz and Nicholas Serota COORDINATION Ludovic Delalande with Magdalena Gemra For JP press contacts afumi inc. Sato Bingo: Bingo Sato info@afumi.co.jp
03-6451-1568 https://www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr/en/events/gerhard-richter-exhibition
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