Gerhard Richter: Six Decades at Fondation Louis Vuitton

This fall, the Fondation Louis Vuitton presents a landmark retrospective dedicated to Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential living artists. On view from October 17, 2025, to March 2, 2026, the exhibition unfolds across all the museum’s galleries, bringing together 270 works spanning more than six decades. From his early photo-based paintings of the 1960s to the shimmering abstractions and glass works of recent years, Richter’s restless experimentation reveals an artist continually reinventing the language of painting. Featuring paintings, drawings, sculptures, and overpainted photographs, the exhibition is curated by Dieter Schwarz and Nicholas Serota. Whitewall spoke with Schwarz about what audiences can expect.

WHITEWALL: How did you approach structuring such a vast retrospective to ensure both clarity for visitors and a sense of Richter’s constant evolution?

DIETER SCHWARZ: The best way to understand Richter’s work is to follow it chronologically, step by step, and so we chose this approach. The visitors will be led through 34 rooms on four levels; each level presents 10–15 years of work, altogether over 60 years. On their path through the exhibition the visitors will encounter Richter’s inventions, his questions, doubts, achievements and get a real sense of his never-ending endeavor.

“On their path through the exhibition the visitors will encounter Richter’s inventions,”

Dieter Schwarz

WW: Richter has famously resisted categorization, moving between figuration, abstraction, and conceptual approaches. How does this refusal to settle into one style shape the narrative of the show?

DS: Each room will contain a group of paintings. Sometimes these will be individual but related works from a given period, sometimes they will be a cycle of paintings on which Richter worked simultaneously. This sequence will result in some abrupt changes of mood or subject, reflecting Richter’s continuing exploration of the language of painting and his return at different moments to the traditional genres of painting: landscape, still life, the portrait and history painting.

A Deep Journey into Richter’s Vision

WW: Richter stopped painting in 2017 to focus on drawing. How does the exhibition handle this shift, and what does it reveal about his late-period creative concerns?

DS: Drawing has always been apart of Richter’s practice and earlier in the exhibition the sequence of rooms of painting will be broken by two rooms devoted to drawing and works on paper. Very occasionally, Richter has used a drawing or watercolor as a starting point for a painting. More usually Richter’s drawings are independent of his painting. The final room in the exhibition shows some groups of the intense, refined but also evocative drawings made since 2017.

WW: What did you learn about Richter in curating this show you might not have expected to?

DS: The realization that Richter’s vision, often understood as a binary choice between ‘representation’ and ‘abstraction’, is a much more subtle exploration of the continuing potential of painting to express in visual terms the complexities of the contemporary world.

What to Know 

Don’t Miss
A sweeping retrospective of 270 works spanning six decades by Gerhard Richter.

Why it Matters
Richter’s restless reinvention makes him one of the most influential living artists, continually expanding the language of painting.

Dates
October 17, 2025 – March 2, 2026.

Venue
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.

Special Program
Curated by Dieter Schwarz and Nicholas Serota, the show unfolds chronologically across 34 rooms on four levels.

Explore Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris

The Fondation Louis Vuitton grounds its commitment to the contemporary arts within an historical perspective. The LVMH Group and its companies opened a new chapter in their history of patronage with the creation of the Fondation. The building itself was inaugurated on 24 October 2014, the result of nearly 25 years of commitment to the arts, culture and heritage. – Fondation Louis Vuitton