The exhibition, “Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950”, includes an extraordinary body of work created by Hans Hofmann for the architect Josep Sert’s 1950 city plan for Chimbote, Peru, and two dozen other important works from 1950, such as “Push Pull” and “Spiral Nebulous”. The nine large-scale Chimbote painting studies Hofmann produced form a concise and inspired example of the depth of Hofmann’s strengths as an abstract painter and modernist visionary. Often heralded more for his influence as a teacher than as an artist, Hans Hofmann: Circa 1950 intends to situate Hofmann firmly at the center of the genesis American abstract painting.
The year 1950 was an important one for Hofmann. Not only does this period mark Hofmann’s full maturity as a painter, as he produced more than 50 paintings in 1950, but it also delineates one of his most productive periods as a writer. In the post war years, the artist wrote a significant amount, revealing the formal and conceptual intricacies of his intellectual concerns and his creative processes. Hofmann also delivered an important talk at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum that year. Entitled “Post-Abstract Painting, 1950 France and America”, Hofmann’s lecture was presented 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.
