Gerhard richter biography summary page

Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden on 9th February 1932, the first child of Horst and Hildegard Richter. A daughter, Gisela, followed four years later. They were in many respects an average middle-class family: Horst worked as a teacher at a secondary school in Dresden and Hildegard was a bookseller who liked to play the piano.1 In an interview with Robert Storr, Richter described his early family life as 'simple, orderly, structured – mother playing the piano and father earning money.'2

In 1935, Horst accepted a teaching position at a school in Reichenau, a town which today is known as Bogatynia in Poland, at the time located in the German province Saxony.

Settling in Reichenau was a drastic change for the family, which was accustomed to the vivid cultural life of the larger Dresden.3 Yet, it was also a move which would keep the family largely safe from the coming war. In the late 1930s, Horst was conscripted into the German army, captured by Allied forces and detained as a