Galleri Tom Christoffersen

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Richard Winther: Untitled. Oil on board, 1948, 20 x 30 cm. Click on the image to view the back of the painting

The gallery has asked artist Christian Vind to make an exhibition of Richard Winther's (1926-2007) concrete works. From the estate of the artist, works are selected back from 1946 and up to 2007 - from the exhibition in 1948 with the artist group linien II, to the last concrete painting Richard Winther works on the day before his death.

Richard Winther worked both concrete and figurative. Parallel through his ouevre we see both the strict constructivism as well as the imaginative figuration. Often the story about Richard Winters works are told as a development from the concrete into the figurative, but already in 1949 he is accused of "betraying" the Linien-group, exhibiting figurative paintings in the "Artists' Autumn Exhibition". Richard Winther explains that he had always painted figurative images in addition to his concrete works. And the other way around, years later in 1990 he writes that the constructive is still in him.

In the latter half of the 1940s Richard Winther's concrete art takes form. The artist is inspired during his travels to Paris after World War 2, in conversations with Richard Mortensen, by reading Klee and Kandinsky, and the discovery of the De Stijl group and the Bauhaus school. Soon after Richard Winther develops his own original imagery, and provides from that on a significant contribution to the concretist arts in Scandinavia. The exhibition pursues the concrete lines in Richard Winther art up to today, and presents a selection of works spanning over 60 years.

Thanks to Tobias Winther

Richard Winther (1926-2007) worked in all media throughout his long career. Besides painting and sculpture, he is especially known for his work with the experimental photography. He attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 1945-57 and was teaching professor there from 1980-86. He was cofounder of the artist group Linien II in 1947 and the Experimental Art School in 1961. From 1962-66 he was editor of the magazine Hvedekorn. He is represented at the National Gallery of Art, Glyptoteket, Aros and all other major Danish museums. He received the Eckersberg Medal in 1971 and the Thorvaldsen Medal in 1997. Galleri Tom Christoffersen handles the part of Richard Winther's estate, which concerns photography.

Literature: Troels Andersen, Jørgen Gammelgaard, Jacob Thage and Tove Thage: "Richard Winther - Billeder og fortolkninger" and Marianne Barbusse and Lene Olesen "De Konkrete".