While German painting of the postwar period mostly concerned itself with coming to terms with
the past and presenting it in gestures ranging from the heroic to the ironic Daniel Richter
focuses on positioning himself in the present. Time and again he devises new ways of being
"modern" in a medium that has long been labeled old-fashioned. His pictures consistently
challenge the spectator through their painterly and contextually excessive demands but they do
not lecture on moral issues. For the first time Eva Meyer-Hermann traces the chronological
development of Richter's oeuvre across more than 200 examples of his work. The turns from
abstraction to figuration and back again that until now have been described as abrupt prove on
closer examination to be a logical consequence and a sign of conscious artistic action. DANIEL
RICHTER (*1962 Eutin Schleswig-Holstein) has been one of the most significant and
internationally renowned painters of his generation for more than twenty years. His beginnings
in the autonomous left-wing underground and studies with Werner Büttner at the Hochschule für
bildenden Künste in Hamburg contributed to his reputation as has his eloquent public presence.
