Gerhard Richter’s Premier Color Field Painting Goes to Auction

Gerhard Richter’s iconic painting 4096 Farben is set to be auctioned at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in New York on May 18, with an estimated value of $18-25 million. That work was the culmination of his color field paintings, which were famously inspired by a trip to the hardware store in the mid-1960s. LIke many, he was beguiled by the paint samples there, seeing them as perfect readymades for painting. In 1966, he gestured toward these paint samples in his first color fi