Gerhard Richter's (born 1932) oeuvre contains more than 3,000 individual works of art. Over a period of five decades he has created a stylistically diverse and complex body of work, which confirms Richter's rank as the most important artist alive today. The six-volume scholarly catalogue raisonné of all the paintings and sculptures features numerous full-page color reproductions of the works, complete technical information on all of the art, and the artist's handwritten notes, as well as provenance, exhibitions and reference literature. Commentary, quotations and comparative images of individual catalog items round out the material. Gerhard Richter (born 1932) studied under Karl von Appen and Heinz Lohmar at the Dresden Kunstakademie (Art Academy) in the 1950s. In 1961 Richter fled to West Germany, and much of the art he had made up until that point had to be left behind or was destroyed. Today his work commands some of the art market's highest prices for works by a living artist.