"What I would hate most is to repeat myself over and over again." —Hans Hofmann
Executed at a decisive point in the artist’s career, Untitled exemplifies the explorations of color and space that distinguished Hans Hofmann’s impactful and ever evolving practice; both as artist and teacher, Hofmann advanced painterly abstraction in the mid-twentieth century America perhaps more than any of his contemporaries. Untitled is paradigmatic of Hofmann’s push-pull technique and exemplifies the unique status of drawing as part of his repertoire, serving as a medium for relentless experimentation and executed with a notably delicate touch compared to his otherwise heavy-handed practice.
Critics and historians alike recognize Hofmann’s immeasurable impact on the advancement of abstraction in the United States; Clement Greenberg dubbed him “in all probability the most important art teacher of our time.”1 Lauded in Europe and the United States, Hofmann mentored artists including Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Lee Krasner at his schools in Munich, New York, and Provincetown. His curriculum traced through the early stages of abstraction, aided by his personal encounters with European innovations from the early 1900s in Paris and Munich. Drawings such as Untitled were integral to his teachings as he incorporated active artmaking in his lectures to students; Hofmann’s innovative techniques and teaching methods inspired and guided new generations of artists in the United States, notably the Abstract Expressionists and the Color Field painters.
A tangle of vivid colors, organic outlines, and free-flowing splatters, Untitled is a defining example of Hofmann’s uncategorizable fusion and evolution of styles that impacted a so many leading artists. The work bursts with energy: its intense oranges and reds rival the chromatic vigor of Matisse’s Fauvist color schemes, and the loose forms and spindly lines challenge Kandinsky’s compositions of the 1910s. Nevertheless, Hofmann achieves incredibly compositional harmony and creates impressive space within the work; evident throughout Untitled is Hofmann’s interplay of shapes and colors to create the illusion of depth, never violating the two-dimensional plane. Hofmann deepens the composition through simultaneous use of expanding and contracting forces, opening strata of depth within one image, exemplifying the effect of the push-pull technique.
Paper was an important proving ground for Hofmann and integral to his metamorphosis as an artist; it was a primary medium for much of his life, comprising much of the little work that remains from his early years living in Europe. Hofmann even abandoned painting in the late 1920s and early 1930s when he moved to the United States, only returning to it in 1934. Curator Karen Wilkin writes that Hofmann’s drawings bear witness to his entire aesthetic vocabulary noting that “on paper, Hofmann appears to have relaxed his aggressive touch.”2 The graceful lightness of works such as Untitled stands in stark contrast to the explosive bravado of Hofmann’s paintings and works executed on board; Hofmann’s drawings reflect his wide range as an artist, with Untitled illustrative of Hofmann’s ability to incorporate fluidity and non-linearity in his artworks.