Background
Daniel Richter was born on December 18, 1962, in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Hamburg, Germany
Daniel Richter studied at the University of Fine Arts from 1991 - 1995.
Berlin, Germany
Daniel Richter worked as Professor for painting at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2004 - 2006.
Vienna, Austria
Daniel Richter worked as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2006.
Germany
Daniel Richter received the Young Artist Award in 2001.
Daniel Richter was born on December 18, 1962, in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Daniel Richter started to paint at the age of twelve. He studied at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg (1991 - 1995). Between 1992 - 1996, he studied with Werner Büttner, one of the protagonists, along with Martin Kippenberger, of the revival of expressive trends in painting during the 1980s, and worked as assistant to Albert Oehlen.
In his early career, Richter did mostly Abstract paintings, in which he tended to use so many colors that some people considered his work to be psychedelic. His style of painting changed significantly in 2002 when, inspired by newspapers and history books, he started to produce large scale Figurative scenes. Richter's work has appeared in many exhibitions such as Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst in Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin and David Zwirner in New York. He has also shown at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Museum Morsbroich in Germany, Victoria Miro Gallery in London and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver.
Between 2004 and 2006, he served as Professor for Painting at the Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste). Since 2006, he has been teaching at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna). Initially, Richter did abstract paintings, with a cosmos of forms intensely colourful to the point of being psychedelic – somewhere between graffiti and intricate ornamentation.
In most of his recent works, Richter has borrowed heavily from both German history and Christianity. He uses their inspiration to depict contemporary scenes. The artist often succeeds in portraying both violence and beauty in his paintings. He has held a number of solo exhibitions, including those at the Galerie Jürgen Becker in Hamburg, Germany, in 1996, the Kunstmuseum Basel -Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Switzerland, in 2006, and the kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, Germany, in 2011. Richter has also participated in group exhibitions such as Deutscher Künstlerbund, Scharfer Blick, Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Germany, in 1995,The Triumph of Painting Part II at The Saatchi Gallery in London, UK, in 2005, and The Collection at the Essl Museum in Vienna, Austria, in 2008. Richter has also produced two stage designs for the Salzburg Festival: one for Lulu and another for Bluebeard’s Castle.
Daniel Richter lives and works in Berlin and Hamburg.
Quotations: "At least for me, when you do something you have not mastered yet, there is a long process of not really being aware of yourself and by the moment you finish this process you can regard the pictures as a product of your own thinking. And when you look at the works and try to look at it as someone else, not as yourself, you actually learn about the way you see the world."
Daniel is married to theatre director Angela Richter.