Description: Retrospective, the most comprehensive monograph to date on the work of Franz Gertsch, celebrates the painter's 75th birthday. Since Harald Szeemann's legendary Documenta 5 in 1972, Gertsch has been one of the most significant photorealist or hyperrealist painters in the world. As a participant in three Venice Biennales, most recently in 2003, and the subject of solo shows at institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gertsch has received some of the highest honors the art world has to offer. In 2002 the Museum Franz Gertsch opened in Burgdorf, near Bern, Switzerland: it is dedicated to his work--a rare honor for any living artist--and features a wide variety of it. Retrospectivecollects Gertsch's most important large-format paintings and monumental woodcuts, along with a broad selection of gouaches and watercolors from the late 1960s to the present, and includes a catalogue raisonn#xAA; of the paintings.