Gerhard Richter Lost & Found

installation view, Gerhard Richter, 180 Farben/180 Colours, 1971, restored and shown at Museum Abteiberg in 2014 Sorry, did you say something? I didn’t hear you; I was too engrossed in the Museum Abteiberg digital archive. Did you know that in 2014, when the museum loaned its permanent installation of 8 Graue Bilder from 1974 to Gerhard Richter’s retrospective at the Beyeler, Richter made a special loan of long-lost works to fill the space? And so far as I can tell, the only account of the story of these works is in the Museum’s archive? Richter exhibits a series of 20 lacquer paintings that were shown in 1971 [link added. -ed.] at the Kabinett für Aktuelle Kunst / Cabinet for Contemporary Art in Bremerhaven, but which were then lost for a long time. In Richter’s catalogue raisonné, they are listed as Colour Plates (9 Colours), which are actually individual groups from the large concept of 180 Colours which he thematized in the Bremerhaven exhibition. Unexpectedly found again in an…