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Lot Essay
“Space sways and resounds;
space is filled with movement,
with the tone of colors and light,
with life and rhythm
and the dispositions of sublime divinity” - Hans Hofmann, 1932
As a painter and teacher Hans Hofmann was one of the seminal figures in the development of Abstract Expressionism. Large scale and dazzlingly colored, Studio dates to a pivotal moment in Hofmann’s career as it was painted a year before his first major retrospective in New York in 1948. It was this exhibition and the accompanying publication, Search for the Real, which outlined Hofmann’s artistic philosophy, most famously the notion of “push and pull.” The fractured forms and striking color contrasts of Studio reveal Hofmann’s early exposure to Cubism and the art of the Fauves during the time he lived in Paris at the beginning of the century. But here he moves beyond European precedent to create a composition of pure American abstraction.
Planes of color in varying degrees of intensity and a conglomeration of contrasting forms give Studio the presence of a dynamic, pulsating object. As Hofmann explained in Search for the Real, this new approach to art making achieved plasticity and depth not through the Renaissance conception of perspectival illusion but by the creation of forces in the sense of push and pull. (H. Hofmann, Search for the Real, and Other Essays, Andover, Mass., 1948, p. 49). It is the painting’s blocks of bold color—as well as areas devoid of pigment—and the proliferation of lines and shapes, particularly the contained forms of rectangles and the more astringent contours of triangles, which create this tension of opposing forces.
The basis of Hofmann’s art can be found in European Modernism. After arriving in Paris in 1904, he frequented the legendary Café du Dôme in the company of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, George Rouault, and Fernand Léger. Conversely, he would spend his later years teaching and greatly inspiriting impressive artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson and Frank Stella. Hofmann is the only New York School artist to have also directly participated in the artistic movements that occurred in Europe in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Hofmann’s exuberant use of color also bears the legacy of the Fauvist penchant for vibrant, irrational, and at times, acidic hues. Hofmann's study of the expressive capability of color takes a queue from the intense color palette of Henri Matisse. The pair were students together in Paris in 1904 at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and Matisse’s bold use of color and form were to have a profound influence on Hofmann throughout his career. The descendants of the flat planes of vibrant pigment that comprise the surface of Matisse’s masterpiece Red Studio, 1911, have echoes in the present work which furthers the artist’s investigation into the visual properties of the basic building blocks of art. Another major influence on Hofmann from his Parisian days were the bold blocks of color of Robert Delaunay and his thoughts on color theory resonate closely with Hofmann's work. Hofmann would allow his inner feelings to collide with his visceral responses to nature. Delaunay wrote, "Nature is permeated by rhythms whose variety cannot be restricted. Art imitates it in this respect, in order to clarify itself and thereby attain the same degree of sublimity, raising itself to a state of multiple harmonies, a harmony of colors that are divided at one moment and resorted to wholeness by the selfsame action at the next. This synchromic action is to be regarded as the real and only subject of painting," (R. Delaunay quoted in H. Friedel, ed., Hans Hofmann, Munich, 1997, p. 8).
As one of the major figures of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann represents a crucial bridge between European movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and the new bravura style of American painting. It is evident in a painting such as Studio that Hofmann is on the verge of formulating a new kind of painterly expression, one in which he incorporates Cubist structure and overlapping planes indicating depth and surface, as well as the Fauvist daring use of color and tonal contrasts to evoke a sense of pure and unbridled energy.
space is filled with movement,
with the tone of colors and light,
with life and rhythm
and the dispositions of sublime divinity” - Hans Hofmann, 1932
As a painter and teacher Hans Hofmann was one of the seminal figures in the development of Abstract Expressionism. Large scale and dazzlingly colored, Studio dates to a pivotal moment in Hofmann’s career as it was painted a year before his first major retrospective in New York in 1948. It was this exhibition and the accompanying publication, Search for the Real, which outlined Hofmann’s artistic philosophy, most famously the notion of “push and pull.” The fractured forms and striking color contrasts of Studio reveal Hofmann’s early exposure to Cubism and the art of the Fauves during the time he lived in Paris at the beginning of the century. But here he moves beyond European precedent to create a composition of pure American abstraction.
Planes of color in varying degrees of intensity and a conglomeration of contrasting forms give Studio the presence of a dynamic, pulsating object. As Hofmann explained in Search for the Real, this new approach to art making achieved plasticity and depth not through the Renaissance conception of perspectival illusion but by the creation of forces in the sense of push and pull. (H. Hofmann, Search for the Real, and Other Essays, Andover, Mass., 1948, p. 49). It is the painting’s blocks of bold color—as well as areas devoid of pigment—and the proliferation of lines and shapes, particularly the contained forms of rectangles and the more astringent contours of triangles, which create this tension of opposing forces.
The basis of Hofmann’s art can be found in European Modernism. After arriving in Paris in 1904, he frequented the legendary Café du Dôme in the company of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, George Rouault, and Fernand Léger. Conversely, he would spend his later years teaching and greatly inspiriting impressive artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Louise Nevelson and Frank Stella. Hofmann is the only New York School artist to have also directly participated in the artistic movements that occurred in Europe in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Hofmann’s exuberant use of color also bears the legacy of the Fauvist penchant for vibrant, irrational, and at times, acidic hues. Hofmann's study of the expressive capability of color takes a queue from the intense color palette of Henri Matisse. The pair were students together in Paris in 1904 at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and Matisse’s bold use of color and form were to have a profound influence on Hofmann throughout his career. The descendants of the flat planes of vibrant pigment that comprise the surface of Matisse’s masterpiece Red Studio, 1911, have echoes in the present work which furthers the artist’s investigation into the visual properties of the basic building blocks of art. Another major influence on Hofmann from his Parisian days were the bold blocks of color of Robert Delaunay and his thoughts on color theory resonate closely with Hofmann's work. Hofmann would allow his inner feelings to collide with his visceral responses to nature. Delaunay wrote, "Nature is permeated by rhythms whose variety cannot be restricted. Art imitates it in this respect, in order to clarify itself and thereby attain the same degree of sublimity, raising itself to a state of multiple harmonies, a harmony of colors that are divided at one moment and resorted to wholeness by the selfsame action at the next. This synchromic action is to be regarded as the real and only subject of painting," (R. Delaunay quoted in H. Friedel, ed., Hans Hofmann, Munich, 1997, p. 8).
As one of the major figures of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann represents a crucial bridge between European movements such as Cubism and Fauvism and the new bravura style of American painting. It is evident in a painting such as Studio that Hofmann is on the verge of formulating a new kind of painterly expression, one in which he incorporates Cubist structure and overlapping planes indicating depth and surface, as well as the Fauvist daring use of color and tonal contrasts to evoke a sense of pure and unbridled energy.