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Lot Essay
Gerhard Richter’s 1996 Fuji (839-99) is an exceptional example of the artist’s Fuji series of 1996. Tightly composed and sharply colored, Fuji (839-99) features a tightly squeegeed, porous verdant green body bookended by a darker green passage to the right and a series of crimson islands to the left. A ferrous red and saffron yellow undercoat is revealed through slight abrasions in the top layer’s surface. Caused by Richter’s dragging his squeegee across the fast, metal surface, the subtle gradations and clustered tears pit chance against intention and provide a level of tonal and compositional tension that characterizes Richter’s achievements in abstract painting. Richter’s paradoxical mastery of the imperfections of a traditionally precise and exacting medium is on full display in Fuji (839-99).
An exercise in thematic variation, the Fuji series was executed, in part, to assist the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in its bid to purchase the artist’s legendary Atlas, a sprawling collection of clipped images from the ‘60s to the present. The 110-work series proved an immediate success and remains his most acclaimed and sought after series of small-scale paintings. With its drawling, restrained composition and sparing use of color, Fuji (839- 99) is among the great works in one of Richter’s most exhaustive and fully realized series of paintings.
An exercise in thematic variation, the Fuji series was executed, in part, to assist the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in its bid to purchase the artist’s legendary Atlas, a sprawling collection of clipped images from the ‘60s to the present. The 110-work series proved an immediate success and remains his most acclaimed and sought after series of small-scale paintings. With its drawling, restrained composition and sparing use of color, Fuji (839- 99) is among the great works in one of Richter’s most exhaustive and fully realized series of paintings.