Fantasia in Blue
Hans Hofmann
HANS HOFMANN, 1954. OIL ON CANVAS.
Born in the age of Van Gogh, dead in the age of Warhol; across generations, centuries, and continents, the artist Hans Hofmann reshaped the world of art through teaching and painting. Born and educated in Germany, when Hofmann moved to America at the age of 52 he brought with him a deep understanding of and ability to synthesis the disparate movements of the European avant-garde. His show with Peggy Guggenheim not a decade later marked a turning point in the development of American abstraction and further established his reputation as a force of change. Hofmann was seen as an elder statesman in practically every movement of American modernism, not only for his paintings but for his role as a teacher. In Munich, in 1915, he set up what is widely regarded as the first ever school of Modern Art, and he brought it with him to America where his list of students reads as a who’s who of 20th century visual pioneers. Hofmann was rigorous in his beliefs, and his greatest skill as an educator was to teach his students to be rigorous in theirs. He held everyone, including himself, to the highest of artistic standards, understanding that art taken seriously could change the world, and through Hofmann’s tutelage, so many did.