 Hans Hofmann (American, 1880–1966)
Fragrance, 1956
Oil on canvas
Purchase, 1968, with conservation treatment supported
by Mark Olival in honor of his nephew, Mala'e Lowell
Olival-Heffelfinger, 1998 (3529.1)
A theoretician, teacher, and painter, Hans Hofmann
was one of the leading exponents of American abstract
art, especially Abstract Expressionism. Having built his
reputation in Europe, Hofmann travelled to the United
States to teach at the University of California, Berkeley,
during the summers of 1930 and 1931. Soon after, he
relocated to New York City where he taught at the Art
Students League before opening his own art school in
1933. Nature was the starting point for Hofmann's
creative ideas. His paintings are interpretations of
sensations and objects experienced in nature,
three-dimensional reality transformed into
two-dimensional patterns of highly keyed colors.
Hofmann painted Fragrance in 1956, a time when he
was working out a method of applying rectangular dabs
of paint in heavy impasto. Bright blues, reds, oranges,
and yellows seem drawn, as if by a magnet, to the
center of the canvas, each interacting to create an
explosive surface vitality. This vitality is reinforced by
the illusion of advancing and receding planes, brought
about by the properties of colors and the shape, size,
and placement of the brushstrokes. |