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Born: 1880
Died: 1966
Summary of Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a pioneering artist and educator who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1930. Prior to World War I, he had spent several years in Paris, where he gained a deep understanding of French art and culture. With Jackson Pollock, he mentored Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler in their careers, and he formed a close friendship with them. Artworks by Hofmann, which were part of the Abstract Expressionism movement, were a fusion of various styles.
During his time in Paris, Hofmann was exposed to artists like Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger and Robert Delaunay, all of whom influenced his own style. Throughout his career, he experimented with Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and a touch of Surrealism.
A modern artist must adhere to the flatness of the canvas support, says Hofmann. Color, form, and texture can be used to create depth and movement in a picture, which is what he called “push and pull”
Hofmann believed that nature was the source of art, and no matter how abstract his paintings appeared to be, he always sought to maintain a link to the real world. As long as the forms and colours on his canvases appeared to be static, Hofmann argued that there was always a hint of motion – and movement was the pulse of nature.
When it comes to his thoughts, Hofmann once stated that “painters must speak through paint, not through words.” “The whole world, as we experience it visually,” he said, “comes to us through the mystic realm of colour.” His primary medium of expression was colour.
Childhood
It’s no secret that Johann Georg Albert Hofmann was an exceptionally bright child when he was growing up in Weissenberg, Bavaria. After moving to Munich when he was six years old, his father found a job in the government bureaucracy and moved the family there. The Director of Public Works of the State of Bavaria used the father’s position to help find a job for his son, and so Hofmann began his professional career while still a teenager, inventing and patenting several scientific inventions, including a ship-mounted radar.
Early Life
When he was eighteen, Hofmann decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and enrol in Moritz Heymann’s art school in Munich, where the likes of Impressionism and Pointillism were introduced to him. In Paris soon after, he met a patron who helped him earn a living as a painter there. He also met Maria “Miz” Wolfegg at this time (his 1902 portrait of her represents an early example of the influence of Impressionism on his work). Despite the fact that they would not get married until 1924, she went to Paris with him in 1904 and they stayed there until 1914. When war broke out in 1914, Hofmann was in Germany on a visit and was unable to return to Paris to save his photographs, which were all destroyed in the conflict.
Mid Life
In Munich, Hofmann established his own art school after returning from the war. When Worth Ryder invited him to teach a summer session at UC Berkeley in 1930, it was the first time he had ever been to the United States. Hofmann returned to Europe for a third time, and then decided to stay and teach at the Art Students League in New York City. For two years in 1934, he opened the Hans Hofmann Summer School of Fine Arts in Provincetown.
Hofmann would continue to teach until 1958, but in the mid-1930s, he was able to devote more time to painting because of his circumstances. Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery in New York hosted his second solo exhibition after he had his first in Berlin in 1910. When compared to other artists in the Guggenheim’s stable, Hofmann’s work in that show was conservative; Self-Portrait with Brushes (1942) is typical of his style at this time It was also eclectic in style, owing to its inspiration from the neighbourhood around his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In spite of this, it was a great success, leading to a number of notable shows in Europe and the United States. Surrealist-influenced artists around Guggenheim’s gallery also had an impact on Hofmann’s own art, encouraging him to experiment with abstract and mythic imagery in his work, such as The Wind (c.1944). History once speculated on whether or not Pollock was inspired by Hofmann’s earlier drip painting experiments, but most now believe that those were made before Pollock’s more famous use of the technique. When Hofmann painted in the 1950s, he used thick impasto to build up the surfaces of his paintings, and rectangular shapes floated above saturated colour.
Late Life
The late discovery of Hofmann as a major painter can be traced in part to his work as a teacher, his emigration from Europe, and his distinctive style. Despite this, he was awarded numerous accolades and accolades in his later years. Two exhibitions of his work were held at Bennington College in 1955 and the Whitney Museum in 1957, organised by Clement Greenberg. At the Venice Biennale in 1960, along with Philip Guston, Franz Kline and Theodore Roszac, he represented the US. And in 1963, the Museum of Modern Art hosted a retrospective of his work that toured the globe.
After the death of his first wife, Miz, in 1963, Hofmann married again and went on to dedicate a series of paintings to his new wife, Renate Schmitz, that now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was in 1966 that Hofmann passed away in New York City. He was 86 years of age.
Hans Hofmann was the only New York School painter who was directly connected to European modernism in the early twentieth century. For the first time, Hofmann’s legacy extends beyond his own work, and it is through his students that his true impact on art history is felt. He was “in all probability the most important art teacher of our time.” according to Clement Greenberg, whose ideas were heavily influenced by Hofmann’s.
A generation older than most Abstract Expressionists, Hofmann was never able to fit in with their alcohol-fueled socialising because his English language skills were never strong enough. While many of his contemporaries in America were interested in Picasso and Cubism, Hofmann was a devotee of Henri Matisse’s colour, and this undoubtedly influenced many of his fellow artists.
Famous Art by Hans Hofmann
The Wind
1944
A long-running debate has raged over whether or not Hofmann was the inspiration for Jackson Pollock’s drip technique in works like The Wind. Some have claimed that Pollock was inspired to begin using poured paint after he visited Hofmann’s studio in 1942 and saw images like this. Pollock and Hofmann’s interest in the work of André Masson, among other artists, led both men to experiment with dripping paint at the same time, according to contemporary art historians who believe The Wind was created in 1944.
Self-Portrait with Brushes
1942
Many self-portraits were drawn and painted by Hofmann, often depicting him at work. An expressive character sketch can be found in his self-portrait with brushes, a typical example of his style. Hofmann projects a playful persona in a blue-on-yellow palette within the interior space of his studio by using bold outlines to exaggerate his own features, such as a broad triangular nose and tousled hair.
Ecstasy
1947
He began painting on canvas in 1947, abandoning the practise of painting on a board. When many of Hofmann’s American colleagues were trying to overcome European influences, he remained loyal to European masters such as Joan Miro and Hans Arp in Ecstasy, which shows his experimentation with a wider range of styles.
The Conjurer
1959
The Conjurer shows the maturity of Hofmann’s mature style, moving from geometric forms to more fluid shapes and a more intense colour range. Color density and constellations of shapes are used to convey psychological and spatial relationships rather than objective facts.
The Garden
1956
Using thick dabs of paint, Hofmann resurrects one of his earliest influences, Pointillism, to create the mosaic of polychromatic textures that structure the composition. Miz, his first wife, grew the flowers depicted and their sumptuous blooms that emerge and recede in the picture create dynamism that swirls colour.
To Miz – Pax Vobiscum
1964
As a tribute to his long-time companion and supporter, Hofmann’s first wife, Miz, he painted this colourful canvas after she passed away. In order to express his grief, he used the relationship between bright colours to create abstract shapes.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
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- Hans Hofmann was a pioneering artist and educator who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1930.
- Prior to World War I, he had spent several years in Paris, where he gained a deep understanding of French art and culture.
- With Jackson Pollock, he mentored Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler in their careers, and he formed a close friendship with them.
- Artworks by Hofmann, which were part of the Abstract Expressionism movement, were a fusion of various styles.
- During his time in Paris, Hofmann was exposed to artists like Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger and Robert Delaunay, all of whom influenced his own style.
- Throughout his career, he experimented with Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and a touch of Surrealism.
- A modern artist must adhere to the flatness of the canvas support, says Hofmann.
- Color, form, and texture can be used to create depth and movement in a picture, which is what he called “push and pull”Hofmann believed that nature was the source of art, and no matter how abstract his paintings appeared to be, he always sought to maintain a link to the real world.
- As long as the forms and colours on his canvases appeared to be static, Hofmann argued that there was always a hint of motion – and movement was the pulse of nature.
- When it comes to his thoughts, Hofmann once stated that “painters must speak through paint, not through words.” “
- The whole world, as we experience it visually,” he said, “comes to us through the mystic realm of colour.”
- His primary medium of expression was colour.
