This portrait depicts Ulrike Meinhof as a young, politically active journalist before becoming one of the main protagonists of the left-wing terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF).

Like all paintings of Richter’s cycle October 18, 1977, Youth Portrait corresponds to a photographic source image that Richter found in press archives in Hamburg in the magazine stern, copied and eventually transferred onto the canvas. Only four years later, on 14th May 1970 Meinhof took part in the forcible rescue of Andreas Baader from prison – commonly seen as the beginning of the RAF.

In adapting the photograph, the artist has made some changes: Ulrike Meinhof seems to be much younger, her gaze seems decidedly less determined and her mouth is set less vigorously then on the source image. By blurring the still wet paint Richter heightens the youthful and delicate appearance of the portrait. Meinhof’s gaze emits an almost melancholic reflectiveness (Richter himself called the painting “sentimental in a bourgeois way“) and the painting’s title underlines Richter’s intention of showing Meinhof as a young woman that seems to be inexperienced, unsuspecting and almost childlike. The composition and the arrangement of the portrait in front of a dark background are remindful of portraits of actors or paintings in the way of old masters and focus the attention on Meinhof herself.

Youth Portrait contrasts strongly with the rest of the cycle that broaches the issue of the death of the RAF leaders. It is a comparatively small painting that by way of Meinhof’s direct gaze evokes an almost intimate relationship with the viewer, intensified by the fact that many people might own a similar portrait of themselves. The image of one of the leader of the terrorists, effectively created and influenced by the media, is thus put into perspective and contradicted by the apparent harmlessness of the portrait. Richter’s Youth Portrait also evokes thoughts about the time that has passed between the shot of the photograph and the paintings that show Ulrike Meinhof after her suicide as Dead (1988) and contrasts them with a “pure” vision of the past.

Ulrike Meinhof thus appears as a person and not as a character contorted by the media that is alternatively demonized or mystified but always dehumanised. Her portrait invites the viewer to identify with her on a personal level and hints that every person is capable of possibly committing similar crimes.

From www.gerhard-richter.com