7 04 ‘ 2017   museomag 
temporary exhibition 
influential artistic practice, from the early 1930s through 
the end of his life in 1966. In his early work, Hofmann 
painted figure studies, spatially complex studio still lifes, 
and in particular, landscapes. 
drips, splatters and splashes 
The landscapes, often inspired by sites near his 
Provincetown school and studio along the Atlantic 
coast, were his most experimental and daring works. 
Early landscapes were executed in an energetic range 
of stylistic variations – Fauve, Cubist, Expressionist. 
Gradually Hofmann adopted the spontaneous and 
calligraphic methods of Surrealist automatism – drips, 
splatters and splashes of paint employed with the 
aim of freeing color and form. By the late 1940s 
Hofmann’s compositions leave behind representational 
references, his abstract forms serving concepts of 
balance, harmony, contrast, force, light, color and plane. 
In the late 1950s, Hofmann closed his famous schools 
in New York and Provincetown and turned to painting 
full time for the first time in over forty years. Over the 
next eight years, Hofmann produced an astounding 
body of energetic, masterful paintings. All painterly 
gesture and action, the pictorial surface no longer 
referred to the external world but was transformed 
into an expressive, independent reality of its own, a 
continuous dimensional present of shimmering, vibrant 
colors and forms. Overall, Hofmann aspired to create 
pictorial life, reflecting forces and counterforces ever- 
present in nature, his enduring source of inspiration. 
Lucinda Barnes* 
*The author serves as Curator Emerita at the University 
of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film 
Archive, where she has curated and co-curated over 
forty exhibitions covering a broad range of historical 
periods, cultural topics, and artistic media. 
KonferenzzyKlus 
über Hans Hofmann 
• Samstag 7. Oktober 2017 
um 10.30 Uhr (EN): 
Lucinda Barnes, curator of the exhibition: 
Nature into Abstraction: Hans Hofmann 
• Donnerstag, 14. Dezember 2017 
um 18.30 Uhr (DE): 
Dr. Jutta Hülsewig-Johnen, 
stellv. Direktorin der Kunsthalle Bielefeld: 
Inspirationen. Paul Cézanne, Hans 
Hofmann und das neue Bild der Natur 
• Donnerstag, 11. Januar 2018 
um 18.30 Uhr (DE): 
Dr. Friedrich Meschede, 
Direktor der Kunsthalle Bielefeld: 
Aneignung der Moderne: 
Hans Hofmann – Michel Majerus 
Creation in Form and Color: Hans Hofmann 
is organized by the University of California, Berkeley 
Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, in 
collaboration with the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and the 
National Museum of History and Art, Luxembourg. 
Opening of the exhibition 5th October 2017, at 6.30 
p.m. On display from 6th October 2017 until 14th 
January 2018. 
© sara 
sackner 
© veit 
metter 
© veit mette