Contemporary Art

HANS HOFMANN
(American, 1880-1966)

Crepuscule, 1960
Oil on canvas
Gift of Henry V. Heuser, Jr. 1982.33
© 2004 Estate of Hans Hofmann/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Inspired by the innovations of Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Wassily Kandinsky, Hans Hofmann employed various aspects of Fauvism, Cubism, and abstraction to develop his own form of Abstract Expressionism. Hofmann rapidly and deliberately applied paint in thick, rectangular arrays that generated dynamic and subtle rhythms of color. In Crepuscule, which means twilight, the artist’s dense layering of greens with warm yellow, orange, and red hues produces an emanating glow, suggesting a landscape at dusk.

An influential teacher, Hofmann transmitted modernist theories to a generation of young artists that included Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and Louise Nevelson. In addition to founding an art school in Munich in 1915, he established the Hans Hofmann School of Art in New York City in 1934. Due to his devotion to teaching, many of his most celebrated works were not executed until the last twenty years of his life.