Atlas is an ongoing work by Gerhard Richter begun in the early 1960s, consisting of photographs, newspaper cuttings, sketches, colour samples, and collages arranged on individual panels. What started as a private archive of source material for his paintings gradually became an autonomous artwork in its own right — a visual cosmos that mirrors both his artistic practice and his biographical experience. Richter collects and organises images not chronologically but by iconographic and typological affinities, grouping landscapes, family photographs, found press images, architectural plans, and Holocaust documents side by side without hierarchy. The work currently comprises over 800 panels containing more than 5,000 individual images. First exhibited publicly in Utrecht in 1972, Atlas has since been shown in major institutions worldwide and has been published in several editions, each expanding on the previous. It occupies a singular position in postwar art: part sketchbook, part Wunderkammer, part conceptual archive. Scholars have compared it to Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas and to the artist's books of Ed Ruscha, Sol LeWitt, and Christian Boltanski. For Richter, Atlas is inseparable from his painting — a reservoir of potential images and a record of how he sees. It remains an open, unfinished work, continuing to grow alongside his practice.

Gerhard Richter – Atlas: Published Editions

1

1972 — Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht / Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. First publication, issued on the occasion of the exhibition Atlas von de foto's en schetsen, Utrecht, December 1972.

2

1989 — Verlag Fred Jahn, Munich. Exhibition catalogue, ed. Fred Jahn, intro. Armin Zweite. Published for the shows at Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1989–90). 236 pp.

3

1997 — Oktagon Verlag, Cologne. Expanded edition, ed. Helmut Friedel and Ulrich Wilmes. 633 sheets, approx. 5,000 illustrations in colour and b&w. Published in association with Anthony d'Offay, London, and Marian Goodman, New York. ISBN: 978-3-88375-801-5

4

2006 — Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne (German ed.) / D.A.P., New York (English ed.). Complete revised and updated edition, ed. Helmut Friedel. 780 plates, 864 pp. Standard reference edition.ISBN (German): 978-3-88375-801-5 (revised reissue) ISBN (English/D.A.P.): 978-1-933045-47-4

5

2015 — Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. Four-volume large-format edition; all plates shown at scale 1:2, rearranged by Richter. Limited to 1,500 copies. ISBN: 978-3-86335-520-3

6

2023 — Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther & Franz König, Cologne. Vol. 5: Annotated Catalogue Raisonné of the Plates, ed. Helmut Friedel. 264 pp. Supplementary scholarly volume; published separately at Richter's request, not included in the four-volume slipcase. ISBN: 978-3-96098-017-9

7

Online, continuously updated — Official artist website, managed by Gerhard Richter's studio in collaboration with the Gerhard Richter Archiv, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Currently comprises 802 plates, each individually viewable.