The European Biennial of Contemporary Art

28 June 31 October 2014

St. Petersburg, Russia The State Hermitage Museum

Gerhard Richter

Ema, Akt auf einer Treppe

Gerhard Richter, Ema, Akt auf einer Treppe (Ema, Nude on a Staircase), 1966.
Oil on canvas, 200 x 130 cm. Museum Ludwig (ML 01116, Cologne).
Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln, rba_d000275.

Born 1932 in Dresden, Germany
Lives and works in Cologne, Germany

Gerhard Richter grew up in the Third Reich and East Germany. In 1953 he began studying monumental painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden before fleeing to West Germany in 1961. With Sigmar Polke and Konrad Lueg he organized the exhibition Capitalist Realism in 1965. Richter became a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1971–1994). His work was shown at Documenta 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12. Spanning color-block painting, abstractions in gray and in colors mixed with a squeegee, paintings based on photographs, works in glass, his artworks have been shown in a vast number of exhibitions in museums worldwide. His work is owned by major international museums, and in 2012 a retrospective marking his eightieth birthday toured museums around the world.