Man Shot Down 1

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Political themes almost never appear in Gerhard Richter’s paintings, with the exception of two works on the events of October 18, 1977. They tell of the suicide (or possibly murder) of two young activists imprisoned for political reasons. The painting “Man Shot Down 1” depicts one of them, Andreas Baader, the co-founder of the Red Army faction, lying on the floor with a shot head. The canvas was created from a photograph taken by the guards when they found the young man dead in the prison cell and was made in Richter’s famous “blurry” technique.