2001.344 Hofmann, Untitled

The intensely colored forms of this still life seem to vibrate next to each other, heightened by the vigorously applied paint that is thickly crusted in some areas and dripped in others. The liveliness of color and paint application creates a space imbued with energy. This painting was made in the years after Hans Hofmann moved from Germany to New York, where he opened an influential art school that exposed the ideas of the European modernists to the generation of American artists who would become the pioneers of abstract expressionism in the 1940s and 1950s. Clement Greenberg, the influential critic who championed the abstract expressionists, called Hofmann “the most important art teacher of our time.”

Hofmann_Hans: ULAN: 500024228

impasto (painting technique): AAT: 300053368

oil paintings (visual works): AAT: 300033799

Greenberg_Clement: ULAN: 500287134

color (perceived attribute): AAT: 300056130

expressionist (style): AAT: 300021502

still life: AAT: 300015638

yellow (color): AAT: 300127794

green (color): AAT: 300128438

1987: The Rachofsky Collection, purchased from Andre Emmerlich Gallery [1] 

2001: Dallas Museum of Art and the Rachofsky Collection, fractional gift of the Rachofsky Collection in honor of Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art [2]

The main source for this provenance is the letter from Howard Rachofsky to John Lane of the Dallas Museum of Art, dated December 21, 2001. Exceptions and supporting documentation are noted. 

[1] See the submission and agreement form for Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné, dated December 22, 2009, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file. 

[2] See also the Confirmation of DMA Credit Line dated January 31, 2003, copy in object file.

Hans Hofmann: Artist and Educator, gallery talk by Andrea Severin

Apply to objects where number equals 2001.344