Anyone interested in contemporary painting is aware of Gerhard Richter and the figurative-abstract duality of his work. Less well-known, but no less visually revolutionary, are the prints and objects he has produced over the last 35 years in editions of anything from a handful to a few hundred, giving those who cannot compete in the stratospheric levels of the art market a chance to acquire work by one of the most remarkable artists of the century.

Richter has now made more than 90 "editions" or "multiples" in a variety of media including photography, offset lithography, screen printing, oil paint on canvas, stainless steel and mirrors. Examples of all of them will be on view at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery from 9 September - 4 November 1999. This is the first time that the complete set has been gathered together in an exhibition.

The first work Gerhard Richter did in this category is Hund of 1965. In an edition of only eight, it is a screen print based on a black and white photograph of a German Shepherd Dog from the family album. In the print the ink has been wiped sideways with a broad brush which makes the image seem to be part-painting, part-mirage and imbues it with the disturbing, edgy sense of danger, of the fleetingness of existence, of darkness beyond the light, characteristic of so much of Richter's work.

This edginess is compounded by the viewer's sudden consciousness of the mechanics of his own vision. You can see the same thing more sophisticatedly presented again much later in Betty, 1991, an offset print edition of 25, where the artist has manipulated a version of his painting of 1988, in turn based on a photograph taken ten years before. A young girl, we cannot see her face, is looking away from us into the semi-darkness of one of Richter's abract grey paintings. The contrast between tangibility and intangibility suggested by the image is shocking and tragic.

Richter's long fascination with printing and with photography as ready-made viewing, as potential for manipulation and above all as a means for visual exploration can often be seen more clearly in his multiples than in his paintings. For example, we can watch him take a figurative image, turn it through 180 degrees or combine it with abstract paint marks. But the multiples also run in tandem with the paintings, thus this exhibition also offers a review of the artist's entire career.

"I want to end up with a picture that I haven't planned. This method of arbitrary choice, chance, inspiration and destruction may produce a specific type of picture, but it never produces a predetermined picture. Each picture has to evolve out of a painterly or visual logic: it has to emerge as if inevitably. And by not planning the outcome, I hope to achieve the same coherence and objectivity that a random slice of Nature (or a Readymade) always possesses."
Gerhard Richter, from The Daily Practice of Painting

The last two years have been an extraordinarily fruitful period for Gerhard Richter. This exhibition presents the results of these productive years: over sixty new abstract and realist paintings as well as several new editions. All have been made since the artist left Cologne in 1997 with his young family to create a new home and studio outside the city.

Hahnwald is painted from a photograph taken during the construction of the new house. Another realistic work, Waterfall, seems closer to a German Romantic ideal of the sublime in nature; but its contemplative character is invested not with awe but with closeness and intimacy. The exhibition also includes two large seascapes. The great artists of the twentieth century have been preoccupied by the invisible rather than the visible aspects of nature, and Gerhard Richter is no exception. Dedicated to picturing the world though he is, he only rarely presents it in paint as we would expect to see it, through the simple reflection of eye or rather camera. When they occur, such images seem captured by chance, as if caught in a bubble on the surface of a river or glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye in a mirror.

The abstract paintings from which they offer a change of pace represent a different relationship with the forces of nature. In his daily practice of painting, the artist engages in a constant cycle of creation and destruction which mirrors nature's own. Through the process of building up and scraping down he paints himself out of what he calls 'facile feeblemindedness' towards an openness devoid of all intention. Amongst the abstract paintings is a series of six large rhomboid canvases which mark an entirely new departure for the artist, both in their shape and in their presence. In Abstract Painting (848-10), we recognise the colour chart motif from Richter's early work appearing as the blurred backdrop to three expressionistic brushstrokes. In others he seems to wield the brush handle-first to scrape away surface layers of paint, the grooves forming rough grids which emphasise the strong horizontal and vertical axes of the works. The exhibition also includes a group of twenty-nine paintings made for last year's Venice Biennale, the only works previously exhibited.

The new photographic edition 48 Portraits, will be exhibited in conjunction with Anthony d'Offay Gallery at Anne Faggionato, Fourth Floor, 20 Dering Street. Richter sees these images of great men, selected by the artist from an encyclopaedia, almost as anti-portraiture. Making no attempt to capture animation or character, they function simply as documentary aids to identification, and herein lies their fascination for the artist.

A fully illustrated publication with essays by Martin Hentschel and Helmut Friedel and a catalogue raisonné of paintings from 1993 to 1998 accompanies this exhibition. Hardback and paperback copies are available.