But his superstardom here does not stem just from a resonant back story. The retrospective, which runs through May 13, shows off his versatility, as well as his ample talent and ambition, in haunting portraits and paintings of orderly blocks of color facing enormous abstract canvases slathered with layer upon layer of paint. And his paintings of photographs, once questioned by purists, now seem to have prefigured a Tumblr and Facebook era in which finding, posting and recycling images are an everyday activity.

Funeral, by Gerhard Richter, 1988. From the Baader-Meinhoff Series.