Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

Stag

Gerhard Richter German

Not on view

As a student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, Richter painted Stag from a photograph he had taken while in his teens. The work shows contrasting degrees of finish: the animal is developed from light gray and white paint, while the trees of the clearing are defined only by animated outlines on an irregular ground. In an interview, Richter explained that a friend from the academy told him, during a studio visit, to leave the painting in its suspended state. This led the artist to call the work a "finished painting, courtesy of Konrad Fischer." The indistinct brushstrokes that make up the stag mark one of the first examples of the blurred effect that would become a hallmark of Richter’s painterly translations of photographs.

Stag, Gerhard Richter (German, born Dresden, 1932), Oil on canvas

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.