For a painter who has so successfully neutralized the declarative potential of his medium, Gerhard Richter has committed to print a surprisingly large amount of discussion on his work. For this new, complete edition of the writings, Richter has placed his private archive at the editor's disposal; most of the photographic material comes from this archive and has not been previously published. The volume begins with the artist's farewell letters to his teacher Heinz Lohmar in 1961, is augmented with 15 unpublished texts from 1962 to 1993, as well as texts from the past 14 years of his career.