photos or paintings?

Gerhard Richter is a German artist who paints in a variety of styles, both abstract and representational. One of his signature effects is to paint a photo-realistic painting, then blur the entire painting while still wet using a brush.

His beautiful abstracts of details of folds can be seen here...

His still life images of fruit, skulls and other objects can be seen here...

Other genres or themes include landscapes, figure compositions, seascapes, townscapes and mirrors.

HIs blurred painting of candles was used for the cover of Sonic Youth's album, Daydream Nation.

Check out his amazing Atlas that charts a huge collection of images he has worked from since the 1960s.