War Cut II is a special edition of the artist book War Cut (both published by Walther König in 2004).
Both editions contain 340 pages and 216 illustrations showing details from Abstract Painting (Abstraktes Bild), Catalogue Raisonné: 648-2 (1987), accompanied by 155 texts taken from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 20 and 21, 2003 (the beginning of the Iraq War). The editions also contain an index of the printed texts and some short, untitled remarks by Gerhard Richter. The editions have flexible cardboard covers with red linen covering, and yellow, red, blue, and black offset print.
For the War Cut II special edition of 2005, each copy has a unique cover painted by Richter.
The texts in the French edition were translated by Françoise Lassebille.
In 2013 an English edition of the artist book was published with texts taken from the New York Times, also of March 20 and 21, 2003. None of these have painted covers.
