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Back to Artists
<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Hans Hofmann's <em>Baal</em> channels the charged energy of its evocative title, rooted in ancient Semitic tradition. The name refers to a lord or master but also carries associations with primal forces of nature, chaos, and creation. Hofmann's work reflects this duality, blending structured design with the untamed vitality of gestural abstraction to create a composition oscillating between entropy and order.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Painted at age 65, <em>Baal</em> also showcases Hofmann's willingness to revisit earlier disciplines while addressing the challenges of mid-century abstraction. Its vibrant palette and bold use of complementary colors, particularly the juxtaposition of red and green, heightens the painting's dynamism. His muscular brushwork also reflects his lifelong experimentation with the tension between form and freedom; undulating lines and biomorphic forms evoke the surrealist influence of Miró and the spiritual resonance of Kandinsky's gestural abstractions. Like these predecessors, Hofmann sought to translate "inner necessity" into visual expression, guided by his fertile imagination. Yet the planal elements and curvilinear shapes of <em>Baal</em> also reflect the influence of improvisational painting, a hallmark of Abstract Expressionism as practiced by contemporaries like Arshile Gorky, among others. It is a composition that teems with movement and energy, suggesting a cosmos in flux—chaotic yet deliberate.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Exhibited the same year at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, <em>Baal</em> signals Hofmann's evolution as a master and innovator. With its vivid dynamism and symbolic title, the painting epitomizes Hofmann's ability to infuse abstraction with elemental power, crafting a deeply personal exploration of form and color.</font></div>
FEATURED
HANS HOFMANN
Baal
1947
59 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.
oil on canvas
775,000

<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Hans Hofmann's "<em>Astral Image #1"</em> of 1947 captures a pivotal moment in his artistic evolution as he wrestled with the competing forces of linearity and painterly abstraction. Exhibited in the same year at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York—Hofmann's first show with Parsons — the painting represents a phase of intense experimentation in which Cubist-inspired linear elements took center stage. Lines arc and stretch across the canvas, creating a dynamic framework that opens into areas filled with flatly applied alizarin crimson. These contrasting forces give the work a sense of tension and vitality.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>During this period, Hofmann's reliance on linearity provided a departure from the more fluid, painterly dynamism of his earlier works. From 1944 to 1951, this linear impulse permeated his practice, signaling a prolonged exploration of modes of expression in which he grappled with reconciling abstraction and structure. While some viewed this phase as a retreat from the energetic breakthroughs that defined American art's rise to global prominence, others recognized the distinctiveness of these paintings. <em>Astral Image #1</em> challenged the framework of Hofmann's singular vision, blending Cubist discipline with the vibrant, unruly energy that remained a hallmark of his oeuvre.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>The work's flat planes of bright alizarin crimson, contrasted with the angular momentum of the lines, evoke a cosmos of restless energy, hinting at the celestial themes suggested by its title. This painting reflects Hofmann's deliberate explorations during the late 1940s that underscore his unique ability to create works that resist easy categorization, standing apart as deeply personal explorations of form and color.</font></div>
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HANS HOFMANN
Astral Image No. 1
1947
48 x 60 in.
oil on canvas
675,000

<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Hans Hofmann explored linearity and color with persistence during the late 1940s, creating a tension between Cubist structure and gestural abstraction. In this painting, <em>Fruit Bowl #1</em>, the linear impulse takes center stage, with dynamic black contours weaving and unspooling across the canvas, limning forms that merely hint at a still-life composition. Hofmann's approach is far from conventional; the traditional fruit bowl is fractured and reimagined into an abstract interplay of geometric and organic shapes. The addition of bright, flatly applied patches and demarcation of green, red, and yellow punctuates the composition, adding an energetic entropy and vitality. Hofmann's raw, alluring, yet slightly uncomfortable palette and gestural freedom elevate the piece beyond its Cubist origins, revealing an artist deeply engaged with the challenges of mid-20th-century abstraction. Hofmann's lines and color fields balance spontaneity with control, oscillating between chaos and structure.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black><em>Fruit Bowl #1</em> reflects Hofmann's ongoing dialogue with earlier European modernists while pushing toward the freer instincts of American Abstract Expressionism. Often criticized as misaligned with the rising dominance of gestural abstraction, paintings from this period in Hofmann's career remain his own—vibrant, exploratory, and unapologetically personal.</font></div>
HANS HOFMANN
Fruit Bowl No. 1
1949
29 1/2 x 37 1/2 in.
oil on canvas
425,000

<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Any analysis of Hans Hofmann’s oeuvre is incomplete without considering his small landscapes, which occupied him between 1940 and 1944. These works capture a pivotal moment in his artistic evolution, transitioning from Matisse-inspired figurative still lifes, portraits, and interiors to the pure abstraction that would later define his career. “Landscape #108” exemplifies this shift. Its compressed composition and severe clustering of intense colors prefigure the artist’s mature works, channeling the same ferocious dynamism that is the hallmark of our appreciation for the artist. The Fauvist palette and electric strokes vibrate with energy, their interplay of light and dark creating a rhythmic tension that feels almost musical. While modest in scale, the painting’s boldness and dynamism hint at the daring risks Hofmann would later embrace in his larger abstractions. Rooted in Fauvism and resonant with Kandinsky’s early work, “Landscape #108” remains a robust testament to Hofmann’s evolving visual language during this transformative period.</font></div>
HANS HOFMANN
Landscape No. 108
1941
23 1/4 x 29 1/4 in.
oil on panel
425,000

<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Hans Hofmann's <em>The Zoo</em> (1944) brims with playful energy, its abstract forms suggesting a whimsical exploration of animalistic shapes and gestures. Dominated by a vivid blue field punctuated by bold strokes of red, green, and yellow, the formal elements and composition provide a lively interplay of color. While the title invites the viewer to seek out zoo-like references, the forms are ambiguous yet evocative: sweeping red arcs might suggest the curve of a tail, while the triangular green shape evokes the profile of an enclosure or a cage. The painting captures not the literal essence of a zoo but the dynamism and movement one might associate with such a space.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Heavily influenced by Surrealist automatism and the biomorphic forms of Joan Miró, the organic shapes and bold colors seem to pulse with life, blurring the boundary between abstraction and figuration. Yet, unlike Miró's delicate dreamscapes, Hofmann's brushwork carries a muscular energy, grounding the composition in his signature gestural style.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black><em>The Zoo</em> reflects Hofmann's ability to balance spontaneity with deliberate compositional choices. The result is a vibrant, joy-filled work that celebrates the world's visual complexity and the boundless creative freedom of abstraction during this pivotal phase of his career.</font></div>
HANS HOFMANN
The Zoo
1944
21 3/8 x 24 1/2 in.
oil on panel
425,000

HANS HOFMANN - Untitled - oil on canvas - 25 x 30 1/4 in.
HANS HOFMANN
Untitled
1962
25 x 30 1/4 in.
oil on canvas
325,000

HANS HOFMANN - Song of Love - oil on canvas - 36 1/4 x 48 1/4 in.
HANS HOFMANN
Song of Love
1952
36 1/4 x 48 1/4 in.
oil on canvas
300,000

<div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>Executed in mixed media on paper, <em>The Indian</em> from 1944 showcases Hofmann’s ability to offer a powerful interplay between abstraction and figuration. Surrounded by an atmospheric expanse of deep blues and punctuated by vivid accents of red and yellow, the central form suggests the stylized head of a Native American. Shaped not by direct detailing techniques but subtractive reduction, Hofmann shaped the figure by enclosing it with dynamic strokes of the deep blue surround, punctuated by vivid reds and yellows, as if carving the form out of the surrounding space. This approach emphasizes the figure’s presence while allowing it to remain enigmatic, suspended within an atmospheric mélange of bold, gestural marks.</font></div>
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<br><div><font face=Lato size=3 color=black>The tension between the central form and its vibrant background exemplifies Hofmann’s transition during the 1940s from Cubist rigor to more unrestricted, expressionistic techniques. <em>The Indian</em> captures the energy of this pivotal period, with its layered abstraction and symbolic undertones reflecting Hofmann’s ability to unite gestural spontaneity with deliberate compositional balance.</font></div>
HANS HOFMANN
The Indian
1944
22 x 15 in.
mixed media on paper
250,000

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