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Hans Jakob Hofmann

German/American, 1880 - 1966

Birth-PlaceWeißenburg,, Germany

BiographyHans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter. Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich. Here his father took a job with the government.

Starting at a young age, Hofmann gravitated towards science and mathematics. At age sixteen, he started work with the Bavarian government as assistant to the director of Public Works where he was able to increase his knowledge of mathematics. He went on to develop and patent such devices as the electromagnetic comptometer, a radar device for ships at sea, a sensitized light bulb, and a portable freezer unit for military use. Even with such great abilities in science and mathematics, Hofmann became interested in creative studies, beginning educational art training after the death of his father.[1]

In 1932 he immigrated to the United States, where he resided until the end of his life. Hofmann was renowned not only as an artist but as a teacher of art, both in his native Germany and later in the U.S. In Munich he founded an art school, where Alf Bayrle, Louise Nevelson, Wolfgang Paalen, Worth Ryder[5] and Alfred Jensen, were among his students. He closed this school in 1932, the year he immigrated to the U.S.

In America, he initially taught a summer session at the University of California, Berkeley in 1930, after which he returned to Munich. In 1931 he taught another summer session at the University of California, Berkeley and a semester at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles before again returning to Germany.[6][7] After Hofmann relocated to New York City he began teaching in 1933 at the Art Students League of New York. Leaving the League in the mid-1930s Hofmann opened his own schools in New York and later in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Many famous or notable artists, especially some who could generally be classified as abstract expressionists, studied with Hofmann in New York and Provincetown. These distinguished alumni included: Lee Krasner, Israel Levitan, Helen Frankenthaler, I. Rice Pereira, Gerome Kamrowski, Michael Loew, Joseph Plaskett, Robert Beauchamp Fritz Bultman, Cameron Booth, Nicolas Carone, Giorgio Cavallon, Perle Fine, William Ronald, Joan Mitchell, Michael Goldberg, John Grillo, Ray Eames, Larry Rivers, Julius Hatofsky, Jane Frank, Mary Frank, Nell Blaine, Robert De Niro, Sr., Jane Freilicher, Allan Kaprow, Albert Kotin, Red Grooms, Wolf Kahn, Marisol Escobar, Paul Resika, Sy Kattelson, Nicholas Krushenick, Burgoyne Diller, Mercedes Matter, George McNeil, James Gahagan, Erle Loran, Nancy Frankel, Paul Georges, Louisa Matthíasdóttir, Judith Godwin, Lynne Mapp Drexler, Roland Petersen, Ken Jacobs, Anton Weiss and Donald Jarvis[8]

In 1958, Hofmann closed his schools in order to devote himself exclusively to his own creative work. Hofmann is a painter and theorist of particular appeal to other artists. American painter Walter Darby Bannard [9] and British artist John Hoyland [10] both have been involved in curating retrospectives of Hofmann's work.

Also prominent as a writer on modern art, Hofmann authored an influential book (sometimes referred to and anthologized as an "essay"), Search for the Real, in which he discussed his push/pull spatial theories, his reverence for nature as a source for art, his conviction that art has spiritual value, and his philosophy of art in general. Hofmann is especially noteworthy as a theorist of the medium who argued that "each medium of expression has its own order of being," "color is a plastic means of creating intervals," and "any line placed on the canvas is already the fifth."[citation needed] When Hans Hofmann died on February 17, 1966, his widow, Renate Hofmann managed his Estate.

After Renate's death in 1992, the New York Daily News published an article titled, "From Caviar to Cat Food," which detailed the "sad and tortuous story" of Hofmann's widow. The article contended that Renate's court appointed guardians "milk[ed] the Estate for more than a decade" and allowed the mentally unstable Renate to live "with her cats and liquor in a garbage-strewn oceanfront home."[17]

Under threat of prosecution, the original executor of the Hofmann Estate, Robert Warshaw, was successful in having the neglectful guardians pay $8.7 million to the Estate for "extraordinary conscious pain and suffering."[17]

Under the will of Renate Hofmann, The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust was formally created with Robert Warshaw at its head. The mission of the Trust is "to promote the study and understanding of Hans Hofmann's extraordinary life and works" and to accomplish these goals "through exhibitions, publications and educational activities and programs focusing on Hans Hofmann"[18] as well as forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Hofmann's paintings.[19] The U.S. copyright representative for the Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust is the Artists Rights Society.[20]

REFERENCES
Cynthia Goodman, Hans Hofmann, p.11
Jump up ^ Tate Collection | Hans Hofmann
Jump up ^ Guggenheim Collection - Artist - Hofmann - Biography
Jump up ^ Hans Hofmann: Quotes
Jump up ^ Karl Kasten on Worth Ryder retrieved online October 27, 2008
Jump up ^ Hofmann Chronology, retrieved October 27, 2008
Jump up ^ BAM/PFA - Art Collection
Jump up ^ "Hans Hofmann and his students 1963-1964."‘Hans Hofmann and his students, New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1963-1964"
Jump up ^ Hofmann Estate bibliography, online October 27, 2008
Jump up ^ [Hans Hofmann: The Late Paintings (exh. cat., intro. J. Hoyland; London, Tate, 1988), John Hoyland Tate Biography, online October 27, 2008]
Jump up ^ Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art: Kootz Gallery records, 1923-1966.(http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/kootz-gallery-records-9163. Retrieved 16 Nov. 2012.
Jump up ^ Hans Hofmann, William C. Seitz, Museum of Modern Art (New York): [retrospective exhibition], 1963
^ Jump up to: a b Pace/Tomasi Hofmann Bio retrieved April 2, 2010
Jump up ^ Cynthia Goodman, Hans Hofmann : in conjunction with the exhibition "Hans Hofmann"; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 20, 1990 - September 16, 1990; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, November 1990 - January 1991; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia, February 1991 - April 1991 (München : Prestel, 1990.) ISBN 0-87427-070-7 see p. 190 Chronology 1963 "Spring, Miz Hofmann dies. Major exhibition, organized by William Seitz, held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which also circulates Hans Hofmann and His Students (1963-65)."
^ Jump up to: a b ‘Hans Hofmann and his students, New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1963-1964’’
Jump up ^ You're in Hell's Kitchen: High School of Graphic Communication Arts
^ Jump up to: a b Artnet "News" page. July 19, 2001
Jump up ^ The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust website: About Us page
Jump up ^ The Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust website: catalogue raisonné page
Jump up ^ Most frequently requested artists list of the Artists Rights Society

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