Gerhard Richter Painting | euromaxx
Gerhard Richter was born in Horst and Hildegard Richter in Dresden February 9, 1932 Having married the previous year, Gerhard was their first child, a daughter, Gisela, arriving in 1936 Horst Richter, Gerhard who has not had a relationship close, was a teacher in a secondary school in Dresden 1 Hildegard was a bookseller and, like his father, a talented pianist, she was passionate about literature, and transmitted his enthusiasm and knowledge to the young Gerhard They were, in many ways , an average middle -class family in an interview with Robert Storr Richter described his first simple family life, orderly, structured mother playing the piano and father earn money 2.
In 1935, Horst was offered a position in a school of Reichenau, then a part of Saxony, now Bogatynia in Poland duly moved family to the city, which was much smaller and less stimulating than Dresden 3 While living was there to prove much safer than being in Dresden when the war started, perhaps marked the beginning of a gradual deterioration of the relationship between Horst and Hildegard the strain was increased when Horst was conscripted into the German army, he left to fight first on the eastern front, and on the western front, where he was captured by Allied forces and detained in an American prisoner of war camp until the end the war in 1946 he was released and returned to his family, who now had moved Reichenau in Waltersdorf even smaller, a village on the Czech border.
On his return, Horst reception was not as warm as it could have hoped Commenting on these many years later, Gerhard said he shared the fate Most fathers when nobody wanted 4 In an interview with Jan Thorn-Prikker in 2004, he said we were so far from him that we did not know how to deal with the other 5 Although it seemed to have held neutral political views, former members of the National Party Horst -socialiste an organization that all teachers were required to assemble made it virtually impossible to return to teaching, he worked for a time in a textile factory in Zittau nearby before finding a director of a distance learning program for an educational institution in Dresden 6.
Memories of his early years are a combination of affection and frustration, sadness and excitement While his family left Dresden when Richter was only three, he reminded the house where he was born in Grossenhainer Strasse, and Gerhard particular home of his grandmother, not far from the original circus Sarrasani building, where a young boy, I could see the stalls of elephants through the windows of the basement of sewing box of my great -mother, made of armadillo skin a man falling from a ladder thing, according to my parents that I had seen 7 is poorly documented on the memories of Gerhard Reichenau, although his memories of his time in Waltersdorf are more vivid, especially because when they moved to the village, he was already older than ten years has been described as a gifted child but notoriously bad at school 8 Dietmar Elger noting that even brought the gra home poor in drawing 9 he left grammar school in Zittau nd attended instead a vocational school, where he studied shorthand, accounting and Russian In addition to not like school, he felt he didn t really belong in Waltersdorf He reminded, We moved to a new town, and I automatically was an outsider I could not t speak the dialect, etc. 10 Like most boys his age, he was forced to join the Pimpfen in 1942, an organization for children who prepared them for the happiness of the Hitler Youth, he was just a little too young to have was forced to the army itself during the last year of the war 11.
While living in the countryside, Gerhard experience of the war was nevertheless intense addition to economic difficulties and the absence of his father for several important years in his development, his family has not escaped personal loss with two brothers Hildegard, Rudi and Alfred, both killed on active duty, he was sad when my mother brothers fell in battle first one, then the other, I'll never forget how the women screamed 12 sister Hildegarde Marianne also met an unfortunate end of his life suffering from mental health problems, because of the eugenics policies of the Third Reich, she died of starvation in a psychiatric clinic 13.
Although spared much direct bombing that near Dresden has been exposed, the war was very present in Waltersdorf speaking to Jan Thorn-Prikker Gerhard remembers the German soldiers retreating convoys, low-flying Russian planes elevation firing on refugees, trenches, weapons lying around, artillery, broken cars Then the invasions of Russians ransacking, rapes, a huge camp where we children sometimes got barley soup 14 Gerhard was fascinated by the army, commenting, when the soldiers came to the village, I went up to them and wanted to join the 15 speaking to Robert Storr, he said, when you are twelve years you are too little to understand what ideological gibberish with 16 childlike curiosity and a sense of adventure, he and his friends played in the woods and trenches, shooting guns they found tra dinner, I thought it was great, I was fascinated, like all children, or all boys 17 While he was young, he understood the importance of the war, and in February 1945, recalls the Dresden virtual obliteration of the night, everyone came out into the street in this village 100 kilometers from Dresden was bombed, now, at this moment 18.
The end of World War II in many ways coincided with the transition Gerhard from childhood to adolescence, and now under Soviet control after the Potsdam agreement, it would be very different than that of Germany it was born in.
1 Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter, A Life in Painting translated by Elizabeth M Solaro University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2009, p 4 2 Interview with Richter by Robert Storr, conducted with the help of Catharina Manchanda, 21-23 April 2001 quoted in Robert Storr, Gerhard Richter, forty years of painting the Museum of modern Art, New York, 2002, p 19 Elger says the artist reminds grow an ordinary child in a private household struggling to cope with the extraordinary pressures National socialism a painting alive p March 4 Elger Reichenau described as a dull place steeped in heavy industry, life painting p 5 4 Interview with Richter by Robert Storr City in forty years of painting p.19 5 Interview with Jan Thorn-Prikker 2004 Gerhard Richter text Thames & Hudson, London, p 465 6 Elger, a life in Note paint 6, p 358 7 Interview with Jan Thorn-Prikker 2004 Gerhard Richter text p 466 8 Jürgen Harten Ed Gerhard Richter Bilder Paintings 1962-1 985 p Elger September 9, A Life in Painting p.7 10 Interview with Richter by Robert Storr, text Gerhard Richter, p 375 11 Jürgen Harten Ed Gerhard Richter Bilder Paintings 1962-1985 P9 12 Interview with Jan Thorn-Prikker Gerhard Richter, 2004 Text p 466-467 13 Elger, a life painting p June 14 Interview with Jan Thorn-Prikker 2004 Gerhard Richter text p 466 15 Interview with Anna Tilroe 1987 Ibid p 197 16 Storr, forty years of painting p.19 17 Interview with Jan Thorn -Prikker 2004 Gerhard Richter text p 466 18 Interview with Richter by Robert Storr City in forty years of 19 per painting.
Early Years Biography Gerhard Richter, first years gerhard.