戻る

ハンス・ホフマン (1880-1966)

 
No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.” No artist bridged the gap between European Modernism and American Abstract Expressionism the same way Hans Hofmann did. The reason is simple. He was trained in Parisian academies prior to World War I and was friendly with Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and, most significantly, Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Conversely, his endeavors as a teacher and later, as a mature artist in full command of his abilities 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 Klein’s enlarged calligraphic strokes, Clyfford Still’s dark, ragged shapes — Hofmann was constantly reaching for different and contradictory effects. That meant his paintings were wildly varied and that they carved a wide swath toward the most exciting avenues available to contemporary abstraction. Hofmann proved to be a gallant experimenter, refusing to settle on a single style for long.<br><br>The Climb was painted in 1960 at a time when most American painters were pushing abstraction in new directions. Not surprisingly, as an outlier, it does not evoke Hofmann’s usual “push and pull’ technique. But it is very much a painting of its time, marked by a sensuousness and a deft, painterly touch. It suggests what Irving Sandler characterized as Hofmann’s hedonistic touch, an optimistic celebration of the lyrical abstraction that overcame the burning darkness of painting in the 40s and trumped even the lighter palette of Pollock or Pousette-Dart that emerged later. While the passages of The Climb are brushed rather than poured or stained, it reflects the delicate lyricism of his former student, Helen Frankenthaler who, since 1952 had experimented with floating areas of color, absorbed into the canvas with watercolor-like ease. She, in turn, had inspired a generation of Color Field painters including Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. On the other hand, these short bands and prismatic slurries recall those halcyon days in Paris when Hofmann worked through color theory with his good friend Robert Delaunay and thought a lot about prisms. Hofmann not only retained elements of Synthetic Cubism, but the lessons he learned from the Fauves and the artists who verily invented abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, and Piet Mondrian to name a few of the key players. The Climb is a glorious expression of a painter drawing from both the past and the present, painting in a playful, but not frivolous manner fully informed and prepared to express his abilities as a painter, simply, and with great conviction.<br><br>As New York City became the avant-garde’s global hub in the 1940s, radical, new approaches to art, such as action painting and abstraction, took root among the informally grouped New York School painters. By 1950, Abstract Expressionism was well underway, but the movement was often overlooked by institutions. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its plan to exhibit a survey of contemporary American painting, many of the New York School painters felt there was a bias against more “progressive” art in the museum’s selection process, prompting them to draft an open letter protesting the show.<br><br>The letter garnered attention, and Life magazine published an article on the protest in January 1951, “The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Led Fight Against Show.” To accompany the article, Nina Lee photographed 15 of the 18 painters who signed the letter, including Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, Clyford Still, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. Today, this article is considered a turning point in the prominence of Abstract Expressionism, and the artists involved are often referred to as the “Irascibles.”
ザ・クライム196084 x 47 1/2 in.(213.36 x 121.92 cm)パネルに油彩
出所
作家の遺品
レナーテ、ハンス、マリス・ホフマン信託、1996年、上記より取得
個人コレクション
個人蔵、上記より取得
展示会
フロリダ、ネイプルズ美術館、ハンス・ホフマン:回顧展、2003年11月1日~3月21日、No.48, カラー図版
ペンシルバニア州立大学ユニバーシティパーク、パーマー美術館、ギャラリーでの展示、2007年6月7日-2009年10月(一時貸出)
ワシントンD.C.、ルクセンブルグ、米国大使公邸、Art in Embassies Program(アート・イン・エンバシー・プログラム
文学
展示猫...もっとその。。。アローグフロリダ、ネイプルズ美術館、ハンス・ホフマン:回顧展、2003年、No.48, カラー図版
L.アダムズ『芸術の創造と意味』ロンドン、2006年、64号、110-11頁、カラー図版。
S.Villager, ed., Hans Hofmann: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, vol.III, Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vermont, 2014, no.P1267, p. 267, カラー図版あり
...少ない。。。 価格1,600,000
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「私が最も嫌うのは、何度も何度も自分を繰り返すこと、つまり偽りのスタイルを身につけることだ。私は発明し、発見し、想像し、推測し、即興したい。- ハンス・ホフマン

歴史

ハンス・ホフマンほど、ヨーロッパのモダニズムとアメリカの抽象表現主義の橋渡しをしたアーティストはいない。理由は簡単だ。彼は第一次世界大戦前にパリのアカデミーで学び、アンリ・マティスパブロ・ピカソジョルジュ・ブラック、そしてとりわけロベールソニア・ドローネと親交があった。逆に、教師として、また、成熟したアーティストとしての彼の試みは、抽象表現主義を生み出したニューヨークの刺激的な環境によって刺激され、可能になったとさえ言えるでしょう。ロスコのソフトエッジな長方形、フランツ・クラインの拡大されたカリグラフィーの筆跡、クリフォード・スティルの暗くてぼろい形など、抽象表現主義者の多くがひとつの図像を追求したのと異なり、ホフマンが常に異なる、矛盾する効果を求めていたのは、驚くべきことではないだろう。そのため、彼の絵画は実に多様であり、現代の抽象画の最も刺激的な道筋を大きく切り拓いている。ホフマンは、ひとつのスタイルに長くとどまることを拒み、果敢な実験者であることを証明した。

この《クライム》が描かれたのは1960年で、アメリカの画家の多くが抽象画を新しい方向へ押し進めようとしていた時期である。当然のことながら、この作品は、ホフマンの通常の「プッシュ・アンド・プル」技法を思い起こさせるものではない。しかし、この作品は、官能性と巧みな絵画的タッチが特徴的な、まさに当時の絵画である。アーヴィン・サンドラーがホフマンの快楽主義的なタッチと評したように、40年代の絵画の燃えるような暗さを克服し、後に登場したポロックやプセット=ダートの明るい色調にさえ勝る叙情的な抽象表現への楽観的な賛美がうかがえるのである。この作品は、1952年以来、水彩画のように簡単にキャンバスに吸い込まれる色の浮遊領域の実験を行っていた彼の元生徒、ヘレン・フランケンサーラーの繊細な抒情性を反映している。彼女は、モリス・ルイスや ケネス・ノーランドなど、カラーフィールドの画家たちにインスピレーションを与えた。一方、短い帯状のプリズムは、ホフマンが親友のロベール・ドローネーと色彩理論に取り組み、プリズムについて深く考えたパリでの幸福な日々を思い起こさせる。ホフマンは、シンセティック・キュビスムの要素だけでなく、フォーヴ派や、ワシリー・カンディンスキー、カシミール・マレーヴィチ、フランティセク・クプカ、ピエト・モンドリアンなど、まさに抽象画を発明したアーティストたちから学んだことも、重要な要素として残しているのである。この「クライム」は、画家が過去と現在の両方からインスピレーションを得て、遊び心にあふれた、しかし決して軽薄ではない方法で絵を描き、画家としての能力を、シンプルかつ確信を持って表現する覚悟を決めた輝かしい表現なのです。

ザ・イラッシブル

1940年代、ニューヨークが前衛芸術の世界的な拠点となると、アクション・ペインティングや抽象画など、芸術に対する急進的で新しいアプローチが、非公式に結成されたニューヨーク派の画家たちの間に根を下ろしました。1950年には、抽象表現主義が確立されましたが、この運動は美術団体から見過ごされがちでした。メトロポリタン美術館が「現代アメリカ絵画展」を企画したとき、ニューヨーク派の画家たちの多くは、美術館の選考過程でより進歩的な美術に偏っていると感じ、この展覧会に抗議する公開書簡を作成したのです。

この手紙は注目を集め、1951年1月 暮らし1951年1月、『美術出版社』誌に "The Irascible Group of Advanced Artists Leaded Fight Against Show "という記事が掲載された。その記事に合わせて、ニナ・リーは手紙に署名した18人の画家のうち、ハンス・ホフマンウィレム・デ・クーニングアドルフ・ゴットリーブアド・ラインハートリチャード・プセット・ダートウィリアム・バジオーツジャクソン・ポロッククライフォード・スティルロバート・マザーウェルバーネット・ニューマンマーク・ロスコら15人を写真に収めました。今日、この記事は抽象表現主義の隆盛の転機とされ、関係したアーティストたちはしばしば "イラスチブルズ "と呼ばれる。

「絵は宇宙と同じように、それ自身の生命を持ち、心や魂を映し出すものです。この意志は創造しようとする衝動であり、すべての創造を決定する宇宙的な意志である。- ハンス・ホフマン

オークションでの上位入賞実績

油彩・キャンバス、72×60インチクリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて落札:2017年11月15日。

"Lava"(1960年)は8,862,500ドルで落札されました。

油彩・キャンバス、72×60インチクリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて落札:2017年11月15日。
キャンバスに油彩、74 x 48 3/8 in.サザビーズ・ニューヨークにて販売:2018年11月14日。

"Mellow Sound of Bells Rings Gently Through My Mind" (1960) が 8,597,150 米ドルで落札されました。

キャンバスに油彩、74 x 48 3/8 in.サザビーズ・ニューヨークにて販売:2018年11月14日。
油彩・キャンバス、60×52インチ クリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて落札:2015年5月13日。

"Auxerre"(1960年)は6,325,000ドルで落札されました。

油彩・キャンバス、60×52インチ クリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて落札:2015年5月13日。
油彩・キャンバス、60×48インチ2013年5月15日、クリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて販売。

"Beatae Memoriae" (1964)は4,827,750ドルで落札されました。

油彩・キャンバス、60×48インチ2013年5月15日、クリスティーズ・ニューヨークにて販売。
パネルに油彩、75 3/4 x 48 in.2012年11月13日、サザビーズ・ニューヨークで販売された。

"Nirvana"(1963年)は4,562,500ドルで落札されました。

パネルに油彩、75 3/4 x 48 in.2012年11月13日、サザビーズ・ニューヨークで販売された。

美術館所蔵の絵画

ナショナル・ギャラリー(ワシントンD.C.)。

"Staccato in Blue" (1961) 油彩・キャンバス、59 3/4 x 83 7/8 in.

シュテッディッシュ・ギャラリー(ミュンヘン

"Astral nebula" (1961) ミクストメディア、キャンバス 83 5/8 x 71 5/8 in.

バークレー美術館、パシフィック・フィルム・アーカイブ

「アグリジェント" (1961)、油彩・キャンバス、84 ¼ x 72 in.

ソロモン・R・グッゲンハイム美術館(ニューヨーク)

"Summer Summit" (1962)、油彩・キャンバス、72 x 60 ¼ in.

サンフランシスコ近代美術館

"グラディエーター" (1962) 油彩・キャンバス 50 x 40 in.

ハーシュホーン美術館・彫刻の森(ワシントンD.C.

「J.F.K.へ: A Thousand Roots Did Die with Thee" (1963) 油彩・キャンバス 60 x 72 in.

メトロポリタン美術館(ニューヨーク)

"Little Cherry"(1965年)油彩・キャンバス 84 3/8 × 78 3/8 in.

ヒューストン美術館

「ブルー・モノリス" (1964年) 油彩・キャンバス 72 1/4 x 60 1/8 in.
"私たちを感情化する衝動が表現媒体と統合されれば、魂のあらゆる動機は霊的動機に変換することができます。そのためには、表現媒体を理解し、使いこなすことが必要である。"- ハンス・ホフマン

AUTHENTICATION

スージー・ヴィリガー著『ハンス・ホフマン絵画カタログ・レゾネ』第3巻の267ページにP1267という番号で掲載されているクライムである。カタログレゾネには、この絵が1966年の彼の死後も数十年にわたり画家の家族が所有していたことが記されている。この作品は、2007年にペンシルバニア州立大学パーマー美術館で、また2012年にはArt in Embassies Programの一環としてルクセンブルグの米国大使公邸で展示された。

カタログの詳細を見る

追加リソース

抽象化の本質

ピーボディ・エセックス美術館のアソシエイト・キュレーター、リディア・ゴードンが、美術史におけるホフマンの影響力を紹介します。

ハンス・ホフマンとの対話

1966年に行われたハンス・ホフマンとイルマ・B・ジャッフェの対談。

プロビンスタウンで描いた絵がハンス・ホフマンに与えた影響

進化し続けるホフマンの作品と、プロビンスタウンから得たインスピレーションについて考察する。

ハンス・ホフマンを愛するためのケース

ハンス・ホフマンの芸術とその影響について掘り下げた記事。

ハンス・ホフマンとの対話

フランク・ステラがピーボディ・エセックス博物館を訪れ、ハンス・ホフマンの作品の重要性について語る。

ストロークス・オブ・ジーニアス

カリフォルニア大学バークレー校の同窓会が、ハンス・ホフマンがカリフォルニア大学の美術教育にどのような足跡を残したかを紹介しています。

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