Gerhard Richter is one of the most important artists of the 20th & 21st centuries. In 1932, He was born in Upper Lusatia in Central Germany, which later belonged to the socialist-governed GDR. In 1949, he trained as a typographer for simple posters and traffic signs. His extraordinary artistic talent became apparent to everyone early on, so that in 1951-1956 he was allowed to study mural painting at the Dresden University of Fine Arts. His diploma artwork was a large-format mural painting at the Hygiene Museum in Dresden. However, his artistic development in the GDR was considerably restricted by socialistic regulations, so that in 1961 he fled from the GDR to Düsseldorf into the Federal Republic of Germany.

Here he continued his studies at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf until 1964, where Joseph Beuys was teaching at that time. That was followed shortly by first solo exhibitions in renowned galleries in Munich and Düsseldorf. His artistic advancement was unstoppable and earned him teaching positions at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, in 1971 as full professor at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and later as guest professor at the Städelschule, Frankfurt/M. In 1983 he moved to Cologne, where he still lives and works.

His artistic awards are countless. To name a few: Art Prize »Young West« of the city of Recklinghausen (1967), Arnold Bode Prize in Kassel, the site of the "Documenta" (1981), Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna (1985), Kaiserring of the city of Goslar (1988), Wolf Prize, Jerusalem (1995), Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale and Praemium Imperiale, Tokyo (1997), Wexner Prize, Columbus, Ohio, USA (1998), State Prize of Nordrhein-Westfalen (2000), honorary doctorate of the University of Leuven (2001), opening of three rooms with works by him in the Albertinum, Dresden (2004), awarding of the honorary citizenship of the city of Cologne together with the inauguration of the south window of the Cologne Cathedral created by him (2007), retrospectives at the Tate Modern, London (2011), the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and the Musée National d'art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2012), some of the world’s leading public collections of modern art. For years, he has led the ranking of artists with the most expensive works of contemporary art.