Now 88, Richter is one of the world’s most important living artists. A 2019 list of the wealthiest Germans ranked him 230th (tied with over 30 others), with a fortune of €700 million. But back then, Gerd Richter (as he called himself at the time) was completely unknown in West Germany, despite some early successes in Dresden. These hard first months west—during which Richter designed and built carnival floats and Ema sewed children’s clothes to earn their keep—are the subject of a small exhibition mounted by the Gerhard Richter Archive at the Albertinum in Dresden.

From August 29 until November 29, 2020 the Gerhard Richter Archiv at the Saxony state museum Albertinum in Dresden showcases Gerd Richter aka Gerhard Richter before he became famous and found his own style(s). The cabinet exhibition Gerd Richter 1961/62. Es ist, wie es ist / It is, as it is and the accompanying publication by Dietmar Elger explore the hitherto largely unkown period in Gerhard Richter’s life from his flight from Dresden in Communist East Germany (GDR) to the Federal Republic of Germany at the end of February 1961 until the beginning of his “official” oeuvre Richter began at the end of 1962 with the painting Tisch, which he designated artwork number one.

David Galperin, a Sotheby’s senior vice president, said the “significant boom in prices for late 1980s abstract works” between 2012 and 2015 was well deserved, given the surge of interest among contemporary collectors. Several experts noted strong demand from Asian collectors in particular during the peak period.

Yet “there isn’t one overall market, but a number of different ones,” for Richter’s work, Galperin says. “He constantly reinvented himself, so there are many discrete bodies of work. Prices at auction reflect that and you see different shifts occurring in submarkets.”