In 1966, German artist Gerhard Richter (born 1932) embarked on a series of paintings: uniform grids of colored rectangles or squares in a chart configuration against a white background, inspired by industrially produced paint chips. With the exception of only one other painting, this marked the artist’s first use of color and a turning point in his career.

This comprehensive catalogue is the first publication dedicated to the original Colour Charts, both those created in 1966 and those made in the ‘70s after a five-year hiatus. Featuring new essays by Dietmar Elger, head of the Gerhard Richter Archive; Hubertus Butin, curator and author of several key texts on Richter; and Jaleh Mansoor, professor at the University of British Columbia, whose research concentrates on modern abstraction and its socioeconomic implications, this is a handsome tribute to one of Richter’s most groundbreaking bodies of work.

Contributions by: Dietmar Elger, Hubertus Butin, Jaleh Mansoor