Louise Blouin Media is an art magazine, website, and book publishing company which was founded in 2001 by Louise Blouin MacBain and is under the parent company LTB Holding. Louise Blouin Media's titles include Art+Auction, Gallery Guide, and Modern Painters magazines. Artinfo (www.artinfo.com) is the online destination of Louise Blouin Media and was launched in 2005.Louise Blouin launched MYARTINFO in 2007 as a social networking site for artists. Louise Blouin Media also owns Somogy, the global art book publisher, and publishes art price guides from Art Sales Index, Gordon’s and Davenport’s.

Art+Auction is Louise Blouin Media's most popular magazine. It was acquired from LVMH and includes articles about artists, galleries, auctions, and exhibitions. The company acquired Modern Painters from its owner Karen Wright, who acquired it following the death of its founder, British art critic Peter Fuller, in 1990. Culture+Travel went into circulation in September 2006, covering international aspects of culture including everything from art and food to hotels and architecture. In October 2008, the print magazine was replaced by a dedicated section of artinfo.com.

Gerhard Richter (born February 9, 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.^{[citation needed]} Richter is regarded as the Top-Selling Living Artist. In 2011, Richter's works achieved prices higher than any other living artist. His works sold for more than $200 million, topping auction result totals for Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti, and Mark Rothko combined.

The son of a schoolteacher, Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Saxony, and grew up in Reichenau, Lower Silesia, and in Waltersdorf (Zittauer Gebirge) in the Upper Lusatian countryside. He left school after 10th grade and apprenticed as an advertising and stage-set painter, before studying at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In 1948 he terminated the higher professional school in Zittau, and, between 1949 and 1951, was trained there in writing as well as in stage and advertising painting.^{[citation needed]} In 1950 his application for membership in the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (Dresden University of Visual Arts, founded in 1764) was rejected.^{[citation needed]} He finally began his study at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1951. His teachers were Karl von Appen, Ulrich Lohmar and Will Grohmann.