Hans Hofmann Biography, Artworks
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HOFMANN, Hans (1880-1966)
Born at Weissenberg, Bavaria. In 1886 he moved to Munich, where he was educated, and began in 1898 to study art. He studied under Willi Schwarz, who interested Philipp Freudenberg, a Berlin art collector, in his work. With the aid of Freudenberg, Hofmann went in 1904 to Paris where he stayed until 1914. His first one-man exhibition was shown at Paul Cassirer's, Berlin, 1910. In Munich, in 1915, he founded an art school and made a reputation as an artist-teacher. After teaching in the summer session at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1930, he moved permanently to the United States. He taught at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, and again at the University of California in 1931, and then moved to New York, where he taught at the Art Students League, 1932-1933. In the summers of 1932-1933 he taught at the Thurn School, Gloucester, Mass. He opened the Hofmann School of Art in New York, 1934, and in 1935,, a summer school in Provincetown, Mass. He became an American citizen in 1941. His first one-man show in New York took place at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, Art of This Century, in 1944. In the same year the Arts Club of Chicago exhibited a retrospective one-man show, which was followed by similar exhibitions at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass., 1948: Bennington College, Vt., 1955; the Art Alliance, Philadelphia, 1956; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1957. In addition he has exhibited almost every year since 1944 in New York, most recently at the Kootz Gallery, and has participated in the Pittsburgh International, 1952, 1958, Documenta II, Kassel, 1959, Venice Biennale, 1960. In 1956 Hofmann executed a 1,200 foot mosaic for an office building at 711 Third Ave., N.Y., architect William Lescaze. He lives in New York.
Bibliography:
J. H. Lawson, Hans Hofmann Exhibition at Art of This Century, in Arts and Architecture, Los Angeles, Vol. 61, March 1944. -- Clement Greenberg, Most Important Teacher of Our Time, in The Nation, New York, April 21, 1945. -- Hans Hofmann, Search for the Real, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass., 1949. -- Elaine de Kooning, Hans Hofmann paints a Picture, in Art News, New York, Vol. 49, February 1950. -- Paul Bird, Hofmann Profile, in Art Digest, New York, Vol. 25, May 15, 1951. -- Clement Greenberg, exhibition catalogue, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, 1955. -- Hans Hofmann, The Color Problem in Pure Painting. Its Creative Origin, in Arts and Architecture, Los Angeles, Vol. 73, February 1956. -- Frederick S. Wight, Hans Hofmann, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1957. -- Doré Ashton, in Cimaise, Paris, No. 3, January-March 1959. -- K. B. Sawyer, Presentation at the 30th Biennale, Venice 1960. -- See also statements by the artist in Kootz Gallery catalogues, New York.
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