Gerhard Richter: Colour Charts (2015–16) at Dominique Lévy featured a vital group of paintings selected from the artist’s original nineteen Colour Charts produced in 1966. Presented with the support of the Gerhard Richter Archive, the exhibition was the first to focus on the earliest works of this series since their inaugural appearance at Galerie Friedrich and Dahlem, Munich, in 1966. At once paradoxical and coalescent, the Colour Charts highlight an important moment in the artist’s career and are situated across multiple leading art movements of the twentieth century.

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the inception of the Colour Charts, the exhibition brought together works from multiple prominent international institutions. These include the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, who lent 192 Farben (192 Colours) (1966), Richter’s earliest fully realized Colour Chart and the only work from this series executed in oil; and the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, Germany, who lent Sechs Gelb (Six Yellows) (1966) one of the largest single-panel Colour Charts, originally exhibited at Friedrich and Dahlem in 1966. Gerhard Richter: Colour Charts also featured an earlier work, Sänger (Singer) (1965/66), a Photo Painting with a color chart of various shades of red painted on the verso of the canvas, which provides an integral insight into the artist’s conception of the series. The Gerhard Richter Archive in Dresden generously provided Richter’s 180 Farben (180 Colours) (1971) to the exhibition. Comprised of twenty panels, each with a three-by-three grid, this work is the first Colour Chart Richter produced when he returned to the series in 1971 after a five-year hiatus.