From the author's note to the 1980 Nova Scotia Press edition: "In the Summer of 1978 I took photographs of the surface of an oil sketch on canvas (78 x 52 cm, it had been previously exhibited in my exhibition "Pictures" at the Anna Leonowen's Gallery of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design). The photographs were taken from various sides, from various angles, various distances, and under different light conditions.
The resulting 128 photographs were organized in two versions: one, the sequential order that is presented here under the covers of a book, and a second version which is presented in grid-form (128 details from a picture II, 1978, 127 x 400 cm, photographs on board, framed, Collection Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld)".
Upon exhibiting the Halifax drawings twenty years later, Richter reworked these photographs anew, resulting in this book in which the images are beautifully printed, and presented sequentially (one to a page, recto only).
