Art Institute of Chicago

Mouth (Mund)

Gerhard Richter

1963

Attribution

Gerhard Richter German, born 1932

Medium

Oil on canvas

Physical dimensions

67 × 74 cm (26 1/2 × 29 1/4 in.)

Credit line

Through prior gift of Mrs. Henry C. Woods; gift of Lannan Foundation

From the museum

In the early 1960s Gerhard Richter enlarged found images—such as personal snapshots or photographs drawn from newspapers or magazines—and transferred them onto canvas. He then blurred these by dragging a dry brush over the wet pigment. As Richter explained, “I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant. . . . I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant in- formation.” Mouth , one of the artist’s earliest surviving canvases, is based on a photograph of the French actress Brigitte Bardot.

Description: Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0