Daniel Richter: Lonely Old Slogans

Regarded as one of the most important painters of a generation that includes Peter Doig and Tal R, German artist Daniel Richter (born 1962) arrived on the art scene in the 1990s as a highly expressive abstract painter. Even after Richter’s turn to figuration since the early 2000s, he has maintained his characteristic use of brash colors and dynamic, theatrical compositions, now applied to a “new kind of history painting,” in the thematic and formal tradition of Max Beckmann and George Grosz. Richter’s history painting, however, does not aim to reproduce specific historical events but rather seeks to capture a particular contemporary spirit, marked by the death of the great political utopias. Daniel Richter: Lonely Old Slogans, published to accompany a mid-career survey exhibition, chronicles Richter’s development as an artist.