Gerhard Richter’s Domplatz, Mailand At Sotheby's

7/28/2019 Gerhard Richter’s Domplatz, Mailand At Sotheby's

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For Immediate ReleasePress Release New York

New York | +1 212 606 7176 | Lauren Gioia | [email protected] | Dan Abernethy | [email protected] |

London | +44 207 293 6000 | Mitzi Mina | [email protected]

Gerhard Richter’s Domplatz, Mailand

Gerhard Richter, Domplatz, Mailand [Cathedral Square, Milan], Oil on canvas, 108x114 in (275x290 cm), 1968

PHOTO-REALIST MASTERWORK TO LEAD SOTHEBY’S

EVENING SALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART ON 14 MAY 2013Monumental canvas will be shown in Hong Kong, London and Zurich

On 14 May 2013 Sotheby’s will present a 20th century masterwork by Gerhard Richter as the preeminent highlight

of the spring Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Domplatz, Mailand was the result of a commission by

Siemens Elettra to produce a monumental work for their Milan offices in 1968. The canvas was Richter’s most

ambitious to date; spanning in excess of 9 by 9 feet, it was the largest figurative work he had created and its sheer



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technical accomplishment was remarkable. Today, the work stands as the epitome of the artist’s celebrated 1960s

photo-painting canon. Domplatz, Mailand hung in Siemens’ offices for 30 years before appearing in a Sotheby’s

London auction in 1998 where it was acquired by the esteemed Pritzker family of collectors for a then record price

and subsequently hung in their Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago for over a decade. The painting is now being sold by

the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and carries an estimate of $30/40 million. Domplatz, Mailand will be shown in

Hong Kong, Zurich and London before the pre-sale exhibition opens in New York on 3 May.

“Domplatz, Mailand returns to Sotheby’s 15 years after setting a new auction record for the artist and just seven

months after Sotheby’s established the new benchmark for Richter with Abstraktes Bild (809-4) selling for $34.3

million,” commented Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art. “The work represents the

pinnacle of Richter’s technical achievement and its scale, power and visual impact rivals his celebrated abstract

works. This is the work the market has been waiting for and its sale is certain to be an historic event.”

Mark S. Hoplamazian, Hyatt President and CEO commented: "We have been proud to share Gerhard Richter's

Domplatz Mailand with thousands of our guests and visitors to the Park Hyatt Chicago since we opened the hotel

over ten years ago. We have a long history of featuring great works of art in our hotels -- it elevates the human

spirit and enriches the experience of our guests and colleagues. We intend to continue to feature high quality

pieces of art – especially in our Park Hyatt hotels – and are hopeful that we will be able to apply a portion of the

proceeds from the sale of this painting to fund selected new acquisitions.”

In 1962 Richter famously presented himself as a ‘German Pop Artist’ and Domplatz, Mailand could be considered

as his model contribution to this international movement. However, the present work also represents a moment

when Richter’s ambitions had advanced well beyond an answer to the advent of American Pop, and had developed

into an independent, highly-sophisticated philosophy that would inform his important subsequent cycle of

townscape paintings.

Domplatz, Mailand exemplifies a pioneering approach to photographic source material, by which Richter

integrated themes of mass media from a unique perspective on the contemporary culture of Europe in the 1960s.

With the 19th century shopping center Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II facing the Milan Duomo, Domplatz, Mailand

brilliantly juxtaposes the two towering forces of commerce and religion. This rich symbolism coupled with the

visual impact of the photo-realism technique, creates one of the breathtaking triumphs of Richter’s oeuvre.



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Today, Richter is widely recognized as one of the most important painters of the 20th century, being honored with

two major exhibitions in the last decade: the blockbuster show organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New

York: Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting (2002-2003), and a mid-career retrospective with the exhibition

Gerhard Richter: Panorama, shown at Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2011 and 2012.

Traveling Exhibition Schedule

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre: 3-8 April 2013

Sotheby’s London: 12-16 April 2013

Sotheby’s Zurich: 22-24 April 2013

Sotheby’s New York: 3-13 May 2013

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Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first internationalauction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973) andFrance (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s presents auctions ineight different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby’s BidNow program allowsvisitors to view all auctions live online and place bids from anywhere in the world. Sotheby’s offers collectors theresources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby's Contemporary Art department,and two retail businesses, Sotheby’s Diamonds and Sotheby’s Wine. Sotheby’s has a global network of 90 offices in 40countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).

*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium and prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.

Images are available upon request

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Gerhard Richter’s Domplatz, Mailand At Sotheby's