Bahnhof (Hannover)

Gerhard Richter, artist

born 1932

Bahnhof (Hannover), 1967

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: wove paper; offset lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 476 x 586 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 577 x 692 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 18 3/4 x 23 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 22.72 x 27.24 mm
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 30 x 36 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Elmer F. Pierson Fund and Helen Foresman Spencer Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 1998.0138

Not on display

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Past Presence

In his print Bahnhof (Hannover), Gerhard Richter manipulates an appropriated image to achieve a blurry, phantasmal effect. The source of this work is a postcard photograph of the main railway station for the German city of Hanover. During World War II, the station was almost completely destroyed by the Allied forces’ barrage of air raids. Bahnhof (Hannover) suggests Germany’s
attempts to come to terms with the legacy of Nazism and World War II. In this way, the work relates to scholar Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, which is the idea that mourning and memory are passed down through generations. Richter grew up in Germany during and in the years following World War II, and his art often embodies a need to rebuild and understand this period of German history. The blurry transcription of postcard to print comes to stand for the gulf between what can and cannot be represented in the endeavor to understand the past.