Stag

1963

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

As a student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Richter painted Stag from a photograph he had taken while in his teens. The work shows contrasting degrees of finish: the animal is developed from light gray and white paint, while the trees of the clearing are defined only by animated outlines on an irregular ground. In an interview, Richter explained that a friend from the academy told him, during a studio visit, to leave the painting in its suspended state. This led the artist to call the work a "finished painting, courtesy of Konrad Fischer." The indistinct brushstrokes that make up the stag mark one of the first examples of the blurred effect that would become a hallmark of Richter’s painterly translations of photographs.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Stag
Artist: Gerhard Richter (German, born Dresden, 1932)
Date: 1963
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 59 1/16 × 78 3/4 in. (150 × 200 cm)
Framed: 64 3/8 in. × 84 1/16 in. × 3/8 in. (163.5 × 213.5 × 0.9 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art