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Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950

Presented by Weatherspoon Art Museum at Weatherspoon Art Museum

July 3-October 17, 2010

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“Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950” includes an extraordinary body of work created by the artist for the architect Josep Sert’s 1950 city plan for Chimbote, Peru, and two dozen other important works from that year. His nine large-scale Chimbote painting studies form a concise and inspired example of the depth of Hofmann’s strengths as an abstract painter and modernist visionary. He is often heralded more for his influence as a teacher than as an artist, but Hans “Hofmann: Circa 1950” situates him firmly at the center of American abstract painting of the time.

The year 1950 was an important one for Hofmann, during which he produced more than fifty paintings. It marks his full maturity as a painter, and delineates one of his most productive periods as a writer, revealing the formal and conceptual intricacies of his intellectual concerns and his creative processes. Hofmann also delivered an important talk, “Post-Abstract Painting, 1950 France and America,” at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name that co-curator Michael Rush says was characterized as the “most radical artist organized show of contemporary art in America since the 1913 Armory Show.”

“Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950” is curated by Michael Rush, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, and Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The touring exhibition is organized by the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK. Generous support for Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950 is provided by the Hans Hofmann Estate.

Image: Hans Hofmann, "Sketch for Chimbote (Mosaic Cross)", 1950, oil on board, 85 1/2 x 37 1/2 in., Collection of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust.