Gerhard Richter: 100 Pictures

Having the lovely and intimate volume Gerhard Richter: 100 Pictures in your hands is like being transported to the renowned painter's exhibition at the Carré d'Art in Nîmes. The beautifully produced book presents paintings from 1995 to 1996, an incredibly prolific time for Richter. The luscious images range from colorful abstractions with scraped and textured paint to his signature realist paintings based on photographs. A charming essay by Guy Tosatto offers a poetic explanation of Richter's work. The telling of a conversation between a mother and her whip-smart son mimics the series of mother and child paintings. Tosatto's characters discuss the nature of painting and illusion, while the portraits of Richter's wife and young child emerge in various degrees of clarity. The domestic theme continues with a number of flower paintings, including two almost identical paintings of yellow tulips, one blurry and one almost in focus, and a portrait of soft pink flowers with broken stems. --J.P. Cohen