Lot 18 D

The candle is a still life motif that exerts a special fascination on Gerhard Richter.
In 1982/83, he transposed the theme of burning candles from his own photographs into 25 oil paintings. Later in 1988/89, one of the paintings became the photographic model for the three offset prints „Kerze I, II und III“ [candle I, II, and III].
‘While the candle is depicted with a shadow in a strongly three-dimensional manner, the brownish background exhibits an unfathomable depth. He reworked both „Kerze II“ and „Kerze III“ with black oil paint and a squeegee so that the three-dimensional motif is coated with a patchy, abstract structure. […] In these paintings, both these simultaneous reality levels paradoxically enter into a strange liaison; they appear as an interlocked unit whose tension stems from the clear contrast between the different forms of production. Although the motif of the candle looks realistic, it is only an illusionistic and therefore intangible representation; squeegeed paint, on the other hand, possesses a distinctly material, tangible reality precisely because it conveys itself as an impasto, independent structure. This results in a surprising ambivalence of realism and non-representationalism, of semblance and reality, which in Richter’s work have become interchangeable categories.’ (Hubertus Butin, Gerhard Richter Editionen, loc. cit, p.90f.)