Biography of Hans Hofmann, Abstract Expressionism Pioneer

Hofmann’s family hoped that he would develop his promise in science, but by the time he had turned eighteen he had decided to pursue art and enrolled in Moritz Heymann’s art school in Munich, where he was introduced to styles such as Impressionism and Pointillism. Soon after, he met a patron who enabled him to support himself as an artist in Paris. Around this time he also met Maria (“Miz”) Wolfegg (his 1902 portrait of her represents an early example of the influence of Impressionism on his work). The couple would not marry until 1924, but she accompanied him to Paris in 1904 and they would remain there until 1914. Hofmann was on a visit to Germany when war broke out that year, and he was unable to return to Paris to salvage his pictures, which were all lost.

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In 1934, Hans Hofmann opened his art school in New York and offered classes for the next 24 years. He earned tremendous respect as an instructor working as a mentor to Helen Frankenthaler, Ray Eames, and Lee Krasner, as well as becoming close friends with Jackson Pollock. Hofmann began to study art in Munich in 1898, but in 1904 he moved to Paris, where he was deeply affected by the expressive use of colour that distinguished the paintings of Henri Matisse and Robert Delaunay. The true artist, Hofmann believed, is one who can merge the physical and the conceptual.

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• Moving from geometric into fluid forms and a more intense color range, The Conjurer demonstrates the diversity of Hofmann’s mature style.
• In March, the first exhibition to include Hofmann’s paintings opens in New Orleans at the Isaac Delgado Museum.
• This theory stems from the idea that pictorial space cannot rely solely on a single-point perspective based upon lines and points.
• Art critics celebrated it as a step forward in the exploration of the abstract expressionist style.
• Hofmann’s painting is characterized by its rigorous concern with pictorial structure and unity, spatial illusionism, and use of bold color for expressive means.

Hofmann is included in another exhibition at 67 Gallery later in the spring, a group show titled A Problem for Critics. After spending two years traveling between the U.S. and Germany to teach and work, he postponed a return trip to Germany “for the foreseeable future.” Hans Hofmann lived in the United States for most of the rest of his life, applying for U.S. citizenship in 1938 while Europe was barely a year away from the start of World War II.

Artworks

Only in this way could an artist stay true to the fundamental fact of the canvas, its two-dimensionality. Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) is one of the most important figures of American art in the 20th century. Celebrated for his exuberant, color-filled canvases, and renowned as an influential teacher for generations of artists, Hofmann became famous first in his native Germany, then in New York and Provincetown.

He also began to explore a wider variety of styles, and Ecstasy reflects his experiments, showing his continued loyalty to European masters such as Joan Miro and Hans Arp at a time when many of Hofmann’s American colleagues were trying to overcome European influences. In 1957, the Whitney Museum put up a large retrospective on Hofmann, which traveled to seven additional museums in the United States over the next year. The Addison Gallery of American Art holds a large retrospective exhibition from 2 January through 23 colorcreateslight.com February.