Among German painter Gerhard Richter’s best-known works are his large-scale paintings based on - and sometimes applied directly to - photographs. A transplant to West Germany mere months before the erection of the Berlin Wall, Richter sought to understand and represent his new environment through a series of paintings from black-and-white photos culled from newspapers, books, and magazines.   Providing new insight into these complex photo-derived works, Gerhard Richter: Images of an Era presents fifty of the artist’s works that cumulatively form an image of Richter’s Germany - its hopes and dreams, its new possibilities and memories of the oppressive past. Rounding out the images are essays and commentary by leading experts, as well as a number of Richter’s hitherto unprinted letters, including a conversation between Richter and critic and curator Uwe M. Schneede. While Richter earned critical praise throughout his career, it was his photo-paintings that earned him widespread international acclaim; this volume celebrates these works that marked an unexpected revival of history painting in modern times.