Why this Lineage Matters

In 1986 at Frankfurt's Stadel Academy, Harry James Moody (already studying under the legendary Joseph Beuys) was introduced to the works and philosophies of the then-residing Professor Gerhard Richter, who profoundly influenced the artistic direction Moody would embark. 

This was a pivotal moment that changed how a young painter understood what paint could do.

Here's what makes this valuable for collectors: You're not just buying Moody's aesthetic. You're buying into a methodology (one of the most influential approaches to abstract painting in the last sixty years) filtered through a different sensibility.

Harry James Moody, 664, Abstract Over Paint, 

Oil on Canvas, 72x72,

What To Look For (And Why It Adds Value)

The Wet on Wet Signature

Moody works with brushes and palette knives to apply oil paint to the canvas in layers while the paint is still wet, resulting in vibrant works full of texture and rhythm.  Notice that critical detail: while the paint is still wet.

This isn't traditional oil technique where you wait for layers to dry. This is Richter's philosophy in action. Richter discovered that a deference to chance is a unifying element in his career: the dribbles and deviations of paint that would mark decades of abstract canvases.  

The tool that made it possible? A  large-scale squeegee dragged across wet paint, creating effects no brush could achieve: paint pushing, resisting, blending unpredictably.

Moody took that squeegee philosophy and made it his own. Where Richter often works in austere grays, Moody explodes into color. But the fundamental grammar remains the same: set conditions, don't dictate outcomes.

For collectors, this means Moody's surfaces have that same forensic quality as Richter's: every decision and every accident recorded in the paint itself. This is painting that documents thinking, not decoration.

"The sheer physicality of the paint commands our eye to hold onto it as we dance with it through the myriad of gestures." 

On Harry Moody, Timothy Warrington, International Confederation of Art Critics

Harry James Moody, 529, 

Oil On Canvas, 48x36

The Paris Exhibition as Masterclass

The exhibition spreads across 34 rooms in a chronological approach. It opens with Table (1962), the image that Richter now regards as his very first painted and winds through six decades of continuous reinvention.

The show includes Richter's work up to his decision in 2017 to stop painting, while continuing to draw. In those final abstractions, you'll see exactly what Moody learned: how paint isn't merely applied. It's orchestrated, pushed, scraped, revealed.

Stand close to Richter's canvases in Paris. Look at how the squeegee creates ridges, how colors bleed into each other, how there's an archaeological quality to the surface. Then mentally place a Moody beside it. Same physicality, same complexity, but Moody's surfaces invite you in where Richter's can hold you at distance. This is the student taking the teacher's lesson and asking: what if this rigor could also feel joyful?

"I try to avoid trick and gimmicks. I try to avoid being a solo guitarist with long solos.  I try to avoid anything that's cute, contrived or looks intentional.  Even though my works are accidentally intentional. "-Harry Moody

The Moment That Changed Everything

Back in 1986. Harry James Moody was at Frankfurt's Stadel Academy, studying under Johannes Schreiter, Thomas Bayrle, and Josef Beuys . That’s like studying jazz with Miles Davis, then classical composition with Philip Glass. Each teacher layers onto the last.

Then came Richter. Imagine being immersed in Beuys's radical conceptual world and suddenly confronting Richter's blurred photo paintings and squeegee abstractions. It's like learning two different languages and discovering they're describing the same ineffable thing.

Richter's career offers less of a single narrative than a series of questions: about truth, memory, history, and painting's ability to hold them all . Every Richter painting asks: How much can I plan? How much must I surrender?

Moody, influenced by Richter, developed his own style questioning color, composition, aesthetics, and patterns. Notice the emphasis: questioning, not answering. Both artists understand that a painting is finished not when it looks "right" but when it stops asking to be different.

Why Now Matters

The retrospective, featuring 270 works, has been praised as revealing "the German in all his contradictory brilliance”. But for collectors tracking Richter's influence on subsequent generations, the exhibition offers something more: a masterclass in how artistic DNA transmits.

At 93, this may be the last major survey of Richter’s work mounted in his lifetime. Which means this is the moment when the market begins seriously reassessing his influence, and that reassessment will flow to artists like Moody who carry that influence forward.

When you understand the squeegee (both literally as a tool and philosophically as a gesture of surrender) you understand what makes both artists' abstractions different from merely decorative abstraction. This is painting that documents thinking. The surface records every decision and every accident.

The Collector's Takeaway

The Richter exhibition runs through March 2, 2026. If you collect contemporary abstraction, or you're considering starting, this is essential viewing. Not to see where Richter has been, but to understand where painters like Moody are going.

That's what a teacher gives you: not a style to copy, but permission to discover your own. And that's what collectors are buying when they acquire work from this lineage: not just a painting, but a philosophy made visible.

Working with Harry Moody is like working with a rock star.   It's an honor to represent his work.  See work by Harry James Moody at Upstart Modern