Hans Hofmann: Der Vater des Abstrakten Expressionismus

February 3, 2025 – May 31, 2025Palm Desert, California

Hans Hofmann: The Father of Abstract Expressionism

Landscape No. 108, 1941, oil on panel, 23 1/4 x 29 1/4 in.

Nur wenige Künstler haben einen so überragenden Einfluss ausgeübt wie Hans Hofmann, dessen Gemälde und Lehren über Generationen von Künstlern hinweg nachgehall haben. Während seine Pädagogik den künstlerischen Praktiken für ihn selbst und andere Form gab, sind es seine Gemälde, die Hofmann als einen der größten amerikanischen Maler nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg kennzeichnen.

Heather James ist stolz darauf, diese Ausstellung von Hans Hofmann zu präsentieren, die drei Jahrzehnte von Werken umfasst, wobei ein großer Teil der Gemälde aus einer einzigen Privatsammlung stammt.

Bei einer Sammlung, die so viele Hans-Hofmann-Gemälde umfasst wie diese, sprechen die Werke für einen Sammler, der Stücke schätzte, die sowohl zu Herz als auch zu Verstand sprechen. Wie Menschen sind Sammlungen oft niemals vollständig, ein kontinuierlicher Prozess des Aufbauens und manchmal des Loslassens. Sammler sind temporäre Hüter eines kulturellen Erbes, und die Breite und Qualität dieser Sammlung mit ihrer Betonung der 1940er-Jahre spricht für die anhaltende Liebe dieses Sammlers zu Hofmann. Zusammengetragen repräsentieren sie auf ihre eigene Weise einen visuellen Essay über Hofmann und geben uns neue Einblicke in diesen Giganten des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Durch drei Jahrzehnte von Gemälden hindurch, von den 1940er- bis zu den 1950er-Jahren, taucht die Ausstellung in jede Periode ein und führt uns durch die tiefgreifenden Revolutionen, die Hofmann initiierte, nicht nur innerhalb seines eigenen Œuvres, sondern in der Kunstgeschichte im Allgemeinen.

Wer ist Hans Hofmann?

Bill Witt, “Hans Hofmann”, 1948, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. © Bill Witt

“Painters must speak through paint, not through words.” – Hans Hofmann

Born in 1880, a generation removed from the oldest Abstract Expressionists such as de Kooning or Rothko, Hofmann spent the crucial decade between 1904 and 1914 in Paris, knew Picasso and Matisse, and was on the scene when the great Cézanne retrospective opened in 1906. So, it is unsurprising that after arriving in New York in 1932, Hofmann took a somewhat circuitous path through a range of styles. Yet, he always held true to core ideas about painting.

Decades before he painted vibrant rectangles of pure, floating color, commonly known as ‘slabs,’ Hofmann brushed, stained, and dripped paint with a looser, chance-based hand. Whether he or Pollock pioneered the “drip” painting technique is still unsettled. Less controversy surrounds the impact of his teaching on Joan Mitchell and several of the younger painters who turned toward a more lyrical brand of Abstract Expressionism — one more closely aligned with nature.

1940er-Jahre

Bill Witt, “Hans Hofmann at Gallery 200”, 1949, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

“Art leads to a more profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of feeling.” – Hans Hofmann

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. Rooted in Fauvism and resonant with Kandinsky’s early work, these works remain a robust testament to Hofmann’s evolving visual language during this transformative period.

However, in the latter half of the decade, there is a clear shift in Hofmann’s practice. This shift should not be underappreciated as, by 1947, Hofmann was still painting at age 65, and rather than becoming entrenched to a single approach to the canvas, Hofmann pushed himself to discover new possibilities of painting. 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.

Hofmann was able to synthesize the earlier breakthroughs of European Modernism like Surrealism and Cubism with the gestural freedom of American Abstract Expressionism. Hofmann’s deliberate explorations during the late 1940s underscore his unique ability to create works that resist easy categorization, standing apart as deeply personal explorations of form and color.

1950er-Jahre

Kay Bell Reynal, “Hans Hofmann at work in his studio”, 1952, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

“To sense the invisible and to be able to create it – that is art.” – Hans Hofmann

The 1950s saw Hofmann enter his 70s still as curious and groundbreaking as ever. A 72-year-old Hans Hofmann worked his canvases deliberately and thoughtfully to achieve impact through restraint. Hofmann’s work is never strongly associated with Surrealism and yet in this decade, he appeared to call back to that earlier avant-garde movement, synthesizing it with Abstract Expressionism, and underscoring the adaptibility of his famous “push-pull” theory, where the expanding and contracting forces of color and form create surface tension, depth and movement.

It was also during this decade that Hofmann began to explore and incorporate passages of color, allowing them to float in space where they produce a sense of tension against buoyant brushstrokes, harmonizing together through ebullience.

1960er Jahre

“Hans Hofmann, Toshimitsu Imai, and others at the Venice Biennale”, 1960, photographic print, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

“I can’t understand how anyone is able to paint without optimism. Despite the general pessimistic attitude in the world today, I am nothing but an optimist.” – Hans Hofmann

In 1960, Hofmann was selected as one of the four artists to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. The world obsesses over youth and young prodigies. From this perspective, Hans Hofmann was a late bloomer. However, look at the Abstract Expressionists who Hofmann guided – many didn’t hit their strides until their 40s. Or David Park who didn’t pioneer the Bay Area Figurative Movement until his 40s. Or more recently, Etel Adnan, who didn’t achieve acclaim for her paintings until the last decades of her long life. Age brings with it experience and perspective.

Maintaining his push-pull doctrine of applied oppositions onto the canvas, this decade continued to see Hofmann push the possibilities of paint. Some works show the graceful, lively brushstrokes of single colors flitting across the canvas. Some works show daubs of paint floating above a churning sea of color. Some paintings appear to be carefully planned while others seem to be the result of frenzied chance. But nothing seems extraneous or wasted. Everything counts on the canvas.

The 1960s saw Hofmann reach higher levels of renown and respect, even as he was reaching the last years of his life. Perhaps, it is the vitality and dynamism through color and brushstroke that grew Hofmann’s reputation. Perhaps, it was the growing acknowledgement of his influence on a generation of painters including Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Wolf Kahn. Perhaps, it is the idiosyncrasies of an artist that never settled into rote repetition, his paintings acting as visual research, bounding with optimism and joy.

Künstler über Hofmann

Burt Glinn, “Hans Hoffman and Helen Frankenthaler exchange greetings at an opening for one of Frankenthaler’s shows. New York City”,1957 © Burt Glinn | Magnum Photos

“As a man and as an artist, positive, energetic, and elegant. A sport.” – Helen Frankenthaler in 2003

“Hofmann’s abstraction is hard won: it comes from depicting the world around him… Have I overpraised him? I think not: for me this still underrated artist stands out as one of the great painters of the century.” – Anthony Caro in 1990

“Hans Hofmann paints as if he could look into those infinitesimal particles of violence that could split the earth like an orange. He shows us the vitality of matter, its creation and its destruction, its angels of dark and light.” – Tennessee Williams in 1949

“I really didn’t get the first impact, the full impact of it [Cubism], until I worked with Hofmann.” – Lee Krasner in 1938

Der menschliche Geist

“Vaclav Vytlacil and classmates being instructed by Hans Hofmann”, 1926 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

“Art is to me the glorification of the human spirit, and as such it is the cultural documentation of the time in which it is produced.” – Hans Hofmann

Hans Hofmann was an authentic early modernist. Later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities, his achievements were stimulated — made possible even — by the exhilarating New York milieu that gave rise to Abstract Expressionism. So perhaps it is not surprising that unlike most of the Abstract Expressionists who pursued a single iconographic look — Rothko’s soft-edged rectangles, Franz Kline’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects.

His paintings were wildly varied, and they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann was a gallant experimenter who had refused to settle on a single style for long and stated those intentions clearly. “What I would hate most is to repeat myself over and over again – to develop a false style…I want to invent, to discover, to imagine, to speculate, to improvise — to seize the hazardous in order to be inspired.”