Hans Hofmann : The Nature of Abstraction

A fresh and revealing assessment of Hans Hofmann's prolific and innovative painterly career

The comprehensive exhibition and accompanying catalogue features some seventy paintings and works on paper by Hofmann from 1930 through the end of his life in 1966, including works from public and private collections across North America and Europe. Curator Lucinda Barnes builds on new scholarship published over the past ten years and the 2014 catalogue raisonné to present Hofmann as a unique synthesis of student, artist, teacher, and mentor who transcended generations and continents.

His singular artistic achievement drew on artistic influences and innovations that spanned two world wars and transatlantic avant-gardes. Over the last fifty years Hofmann has come to be understood primarily from the vantage of his late color-plane abstractions. Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction expands our understanding and reinvigorates our appreciation of Hofmann through an inclusive presentation of his artistic arc, showing the vibrant interconnectedness and continuity in his work of European and American influences from the early twentieth century through the advent of abstract expressionism.

Published in association with the Berkeley Museum of Art Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Exhibition dates: Berkeley Museum of Art Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA): February 27-July 21, 2019 The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA: September 21, 2019-January 6, 2020.

Details

• Author: Lucinda Barnes, Curator Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum 
• Hardcover: 192 pages | 135 colour illustrations
• Date published: February 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0520294479
• Product Dimensions:  29.1 x 26.1 cm