HANS HOFMANN

Drawings 1934 - 1951

January 9 – April 18, 2009

This exhibition features drawings on paper by Hans Hofmann (1880 – 1966), one of the most important figures in the history of postwar American art.  Born in Germany in 1880, the artist and teacher played an important role in the development of Abstract Expressionist painting.  A number of his drawings from the late 1940s prefigure the 1960s movement known as Color Field painting.

Hofmann studied in Munich and moved to Paris to study art, where Henri Matisse was a classmate.  There he became exposed to avant-garde artists of the day including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Fernand Léger.  In 1915, he returned to Munich and founded an art school respected throughout Europe.  Hofmann moved to the United States in 1930, first teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, and, in 1932, began teaching at the Art Students League in New York City.  He subsequently opened his own school in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  His students included many artists who later became internationally-known such as Helen Frankenthaler, Red Grooms, Alfred Jensen, Allan Kaprow, Lee Krasner and Louise Nevelson.

Always a prolific and respected artist, Hofmann ended his teaching career in 1958, at the age of 78, to devote himself full-time to painting.  His paintings and drawings may be found in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York City; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tate Gallery, London;  Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.