December 2020 (F)
December 2020 (F)
Signed Print
Gerhard Richter
42 x 60cm, Edition of 25, Giclée print, 2020
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Meaning & Analysis
December 2020 (F) is a giclée print reproducing an Aquarelle work by Richter – a single large ink blot spreading organically across the surface of ruled white paper. Produced in 2020 and signed in an edition of 25, the work bears the artist's handwritten inscription "22. Juli 2020 – Richter." at the lower left. The blot grades from near-black at its centre through deep crimson to a wide, feathered magenta at its irregular edges.
The Aquarelle works – watercolour and ink pieces Richter produced in significant quantities from the 1990s onwards – occupy a distinctive position in his output. They are among the most direct and unmediated of his marks: small gestures rather than large strategies, made quickly on paper, without the layered processes of the major canvases. The pandemic period accelerated their production, and works from 2020 carry a particular quality – confined, introspective, returning to the most elemental acts of making.
In December 2020 (F), a single blot dominates the sheet. Ink applied to ruled paper has spread and pooled, its boundaries entirely contingent – absorbed into the paper fibres, feathering at the edges, darkening at the centre where the ink concentrated deepest. The faint horizontal lines of the ruled sheet remain visible beneath and around the blot, providing a grid of ordered intention against which the ink's behaviour – immediate, unpredictable, ungovernable – is measured. The inscription anchors the work in a specific moment: 22 July 2020, during the first pandemic summer. The title December 2020 (F) refers to the publication and edition rather than the date of making; the individual work was produced in July and released as a signed edition later that year. As a giclée, this very intimate object is translated into a form that can circulate while preserving the scale and quality of the ink.
