Gerhard Richter

Oil Sketch No. 432/11

1977

Not on display

Artist: Gerhard Richter born 1932
Original title: Ölskizze No. 432/11
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 521 × 780 × 23 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1979
Reference: T02380

Display caption

This small painting was used as the basis for Abstract Painting No. 439, also in this display. ‘I do not paint the oil sketches with the intention of using them for the big smooth pictures, but I subsequently use some of the sketches as patterns for big pictures’, Richter has said. ‘The oil sketches look as if they had been painted quickly, but they often take longer than the big paintings, as they are altered from time to time to look as heterogeneous as possible.’

Gallery label, April 2007

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Catalogue entry

T02380 OIL SKETCH NO.432/11 1977

Inscribed on back of canvas ‘432/11’ top left and ‘Richter, 77’ top right
Oil on canvas, 20 5/8 × 30 13/16 (52.4 × 78.2)
Purchased from the artist through the Whitechapel Art Gallery (Grant-in-Aid) 1979
Exh: Gerhard Richter: 17 Pictures, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, July 1978 (no catalogue); Gerhard Richter: Abstract Paintings, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, October–November 1978 (not listed); Whitechapel Art Gallery, March–April 1979 (not listed)

The artist confirms that he used this oil sketch as a study for T02348 and that it is unrelated to any other picture.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1978-80: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1981