Exhibitions

Overpainted Photographs

Arles, France

Gerhard Richter blurs the boundary between memory and abstraction by layering thick oil paint over intimate, personal snapshots.

Gerhard Richter, Overpainted Photographs

Image credit

Gerhard Richter, Overpainted Photographs 2026 - 2027, The Tower, Main Gallery, © LUMA Arles, France.

Meet the artist

ArtLovers Tip

Look closely at the Museum Visit series; the white paint represents the actual movement of visitors at Tate Modern, essentially capturing the ghost-like presence of people in the gallery.

Exhibition Highlights - What you'll see

Gerhard Richter, often cited as a definitive voice in modern art, began this series in the late 1980s as a quiet experiment in perception. By applying smears and scrapings of oil paint to small photographic prints, he forces a confrontation between the literal record of a camera and the tactile, unpredictable nature of a brushstroke. These works, including family portraits and forest landscapes from his private archive, lose their status as documents to become something more elusive and haunting.

You're watching a series of modest, postcard-sized images where grey lacquer veils a forest in the Grauwald series or vibrant streaks of white paint track the movement of visitors in Museum Visit. The scale is intimate, requiring you to lean in close to see how the paint drags across the glossy paper, sometimes concealing a face and other times highlighting a tree, turning a static memory into a living, shifting surface.

Worth the trip

  • Rare intimacy: While Richter is known for monumental canvases, these small-scale works offer a uniquely personal glimpse into his private archive and working methods.
  • Hybrid mastery: The exhibition showcases the radical way the artist uses leftover paint from his abstract works to transform mundane holiday snapshots into high art.
  • Architectural dialogue: Seeing these delicate, textured pieces inside Frank Gehry's striking Tower at LUMA Arles creates a powerful contrast between the intimate art and the grand scale of the venue.

How to experience it

Descend into the lower levels of The Tower and move slowly through the gallery, allowing the small scale of the photographs to dictate a quiet, contemplative pace. Pay attention to the texture of the varnish and the way the light catches the ridges of the paint. After emerging from the metallic geometry of the museum, walk toward the ancient center of Arles and find a quiet cafe in the Place du Forum to reflect on how the layers of history in the city mirror the layers of paint in Richter's work.

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