What does Gerhard Richter paint for the GDR? – Diepresse.com
An early work by Gerhard Richter in Dresden has been partially exposed. In 1979 it was painted over to the west after Richter’s escape.
It was not supposed to see it for a long time: Gerhard Richter, whose works are among the most expensive of a living artist, was blocked against the fact that an early work he had made visible in Dresden again. But in 2022, more than 30 years after the turn, he agreed to expose only a central section of the image. The murals are called “joie de vivre”.
Originally, the mural in a foyer of the German Hygiene Museum 63 square meters. The work is of particular importance for judges: it is his diploma thesis. As a 24-year-old, he completed his studies at the Dresden University of Fine Arts in 1956. In terms of content, it is not very spectacular, an order work in which judges had little artistic freedom: it shows different groups of figures in everyday situations and in leisure activities. The 19 square meters now exposed showed a female figure in a swimsuit in front of a lake in the upper half that helps a man in a red bathrobe. A man is currently drying up next to her. In the lower half, a woman dances with two children, to the left of her a young woman sits in a listener pose on a bench.
« /> Gerhard Richter completed his studies in Dresden with the murals in Dresden Imago / Sylvio Dittrich
Five years after the picture was taken, judge of the GDR returned to the Federal Republic in March 1961, a few months before the Berlin Wall was built. In 1979 his murals were painted over. Official reason: Because the « student work was not to measure artistic importance », as it was said at the time. Richter’s « flight of the Republic » was also mentioned in this context. The Hygiene Museum itself writes on its homepage that the work was « overstretched for monument conservation reasons in order to restore the original state of the foyer. »
One should « let it brush »
Soon after the turn, there were efforts by the hygiene museum to expose the image. But Richter had distanced himself from his GDR premature work, called the painting « Youth Sin », as the « Dresden Magazin » reports. It would be « nonsense to treat the Friede joy-egg idyll like a relic, » said Richter. You should please « let it brush as it is. » But the now 93-year-old judge agreed. The restoration started in December 2023 and cost around 220,000 euros. Judge lives in Cologne today. (APA/dpa/her)
