Renowned painter Gerhard Richter, donates Holocaust art to new museum

Germany’s greatest living painter has donated 100 works of art to Berlin’s planned new Museum der Moderne, including his Birkenau series addressing the Holocaust.

Gerhard Richter, 89, promised the works this week in a grand gesture that caught the eye of the art world, given a typical Richter piece sells for millions of pounds.

Of perhaps greatest significance is the long-term loan of the paintings he worked on for decades, in which he tries to capture the essence of the Shoah based on photographs secretly taken inside Auschwitz-Birkenau then smuggled out.

Born in 1932 in Dresden, Richter spent much of his life working in Dusseldorf, and by offering his art on a long-term loan to Berlin’s newest museum, he has stopped the works leaving Germany.