“Colour Charts” at Dominique Lévy Gallery in London is the first exhibition to showcase a small but important group of pioneering German artist Gerhard Richter’s seminal “Colour Chart” paintings from the original nineteen produced in 1966 which were exhibited for the first time at Galerie Friedrich & Dahlem in Munich in the same year.Presented in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Richter’s paradoxical yet coalescent Colour Chart series, the fascinating exhibition brings together an impressive selection of works from a number of major international institutions which are showcased alongside a collection of archival documents related to the series, including an original 1960s Ducolux sample card for enamel paint.Highlights of the exhibition include “Sechs Gelb (Six Yellows)” 1966, one of the largest single-panel Colour Charts, which is being lent by Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Bade, and the monumental 20-panel work “180 Farben (180 Colours),” which was the first painting Richter produced when he returned to the Colour Charts in 1971 after a five year hiatus.The Colour Charts signify a major shift in Richter’s practice from his previous black-and-white Photo Paintings. They were the first paintings in Richter’s career in which colour appears, with the exception of the 1966 work “Ema (Nude on a Staircase),” and “set the stage for his renowned multicoloured Abstract Paintings of the 1970s and beyond,” according to the gallery.Inspiration for the series came during a visit to a Düsseldorf hardware store where Richter encountered an array of paint sample cards. “It looks like a painting. It’s wonderful,” was Richter’s response to the paint sample cards, according to the catalogue for the 2008 MOMA exhibition “Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today.” In his notes for a July 2006 press conference, quoted in the book “Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting” by Dietmar Elger, Richter says that he was initially attracted by the typical Pop Art aestheticism of using standard colour-sample cards. “I preferred the unartistic, tasteful and secular illustration of the different tones to the paintings of Albers, Bill, Calderara, Lohse, etc.,” he said.Gerhard Richter: Colour Charts is at Dominique Lévy Gallery London until January 16, 2016.
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