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Hans Hofmann
The career of the German-American painter and educator Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) describes the arc of artistic modernism from pre–World War I Munich and Paris to mid-twentieth-century Greenwich Village.
His career also traces the transatlantic engagement of modern painting with the materials of its own making, a relationship that is perhaps still not completely understood. In these interrelated narratives, Hofmann is a central protagonist, providing a vital link between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art practice and between European and American modernism. The remarkable vitality of his later work affords insight not only into the style but also the literal substance of this formative period of artistic and material innovation.
This richly illustrated book, the fourth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Artist’s Materials series, presents a thorough examination of Hofmann’s late-career materials. Initial chapters present an informative overview of Hofmann’s life and work in Europe and America and discuss his crucial
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‘OH THEPLEASURES OF PAINTING . PLAYING IN MUD . THESMALLCHANGES IN TONE . LIKEMUSIC TO MY EYES . PAINT IS YOU . PAINT IS ME . SUCH A PLEASURE TO PAINT . TO PAINT IS TO LIVE . A MISTAKE . A RONGTURN . A SLIP. IMPOSSIBLE . NOT IN THISRELM . THEJOY . HAPPINESS . THEPLEASURE OF PAINTING . TO CREATETHINGSLIKEGOD . TO DISTROY AT WILL A WORLD OF MY OWN. TO EXPERIMENT IN A PHALSFALSEWORLD . WHERENOTHINGCOUNTS . ANDEVERYTHINGCOUNTS . IT BRINGS ME CLOSER TO TRUTH . TRUTHDOESNOTEXIST . PAINTINGDOES . GOODPAINT . BADPAINT . RIGHTPAINT . WRONGPAINT . NEVERTOOMUCH . TOOLITTLE . TO BIG . TO SMALL . IT IS . THAT IS WHY I LOVE TO PAINT . I WILLALWAYS BE A PAINTER . OF SORTS’
Artists who leave painting behind, for sculpture, as in the case of Eva Hesse, or for Happenings, performance, conceptual art, and “un-art,” as in the case of Allan Kaprow, occupy a special category, one that hits painters who stuck with the ancient medium like a cream pie in the face: they were so so good at it, but felt it was insufficient for them to grow as an artist, so what does that say for the rest of us?
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'The Tales of Hofmann': A Life Across Three Continents
Robert Hofmann, born in Vienna on 7 August 1889, is a particularly interesting Dunera boy. Unlike many who came to Australia as teenagers or young adults, Robert boarded the Dunera at age 51 with a life and career in Europe behind him. And, unlike many other older Dunera men, he never sought to return to his life in Europe. An accomplished artist, he spent the next four and a half decades abroad: in Australia, and later the United States, where he died in Syracuse, New York, in 1987 at the age of 97. With the help of his former colleague, student, and friend, New York-based artist Mark Topp; Robert’s niece, the retired professor and writer Greta Hofmann Nemiroff; and Dunera researchers Elisabeth Lebensaft and Christoph Mentschl, we have been able to gain valuable insight into Robert Hofmann's life and artistic career across three continents.
Robert was one of nine children born to Edmund Hofmann and Henriette, née Hock, both of whom were Jewish. Greta, the daughter of Robert's youngest brother Ernest, writ
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