Hans Hofmann, one of the most important figures in 20th century American art, is the subject of a new exhibit at Greenwich’s Bruce Museum. “Walls of Color: The Murals of Hans Hofmann” is there through September 6.

By Arthur Stampleman

Hans Hofmann, one of the most important figures in 20th century American art, is the subject of a new exhibit at Greenwich’s Bruce Museum. “Walls of Color: The Murals of Hans Hofmann” is there through September 6.

Hofmann is generally recognized both as an important teacher and as a key member of the Abstract Expressionist School. Ken Silver, curator of the exhibit, attributes to Hofmann a key role in the transmission of modern art from Europe to the United States. What is less well known about him are the two large mosaic murals he created in New York City, which are the focus of the current exhibit.

As you enter the exhibit, the first works you see are three paintings Hofmann did before his active involvement in the murals. Featured is his work with mosaic murals, including the display of numerous very large studies (e.g. 84 x 48 inches) and a half-scale model of his four-sided mural wrapping around an elevator bank in an office building at 711 Third Avenue. The exhibit ends with three paintings from the Brooklyn, Guggenheim, and Metropolitan museums showing how his mural activity influenced Hofmann’s later work, particularly the increased size of his paintings.

Regardless of whether he worked on easels or murals, visitors can see the elements in Hofmann’s approach for which he is best known:

• Highly abstract painting, but generally based on real objects as the starting point — “painting from nature”;
• An emphasis on bright, Matisse-like colors;
• The influence of the Mondrian grid, and, in later work, the frequent presence of the rectangle;
• “Push-Pull”, the placement of contrasting colors beside each other to give the sense of three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface without the use of Renaissance single point perspective.

Born in Germany, Hofmann (1880-1966), studied painting in Munich, and taught painting in Paris and Munich from 1903. While in Paris he met and/ or was influenced by Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, and Kandinsky. In 1930 he was invited to teach at UC Berkeley and in 1933 he moved to teach permanently to New York, first at the Art Students League and then at his own school. Among his students were Lee Krasner, Marisol, Louise Nevelson, Wolf Kahn, and Red Grooms. Early on his focus was on teaching, but as he began to give more time to painting, he was considered an important member of the New York School.

Mural painting was an important element of the artistic scene in the 1920s and 1930s, generally representational and often with a message, particularly when under the auspices of the WPA during the Depression. After the war, they became less representational and several New York art dealers began to promote associations of their artists with architects.

In 1950, Hofmann’s dealer, Samuel Kootz, put on a show of several architect/artist teams, including Hofmann and architects Jose Lui Sert and Paul Weiener. The architects were working on a master plan for Chimbote, Peru. Hofmann was invited to design mosaics for a “church” bell tower and plaza there. The project never materialized but Hofmann prepared numerous large studies, several on view in Greenwich.

Two mosaic mural projects did materialize: 711 Third Avenue in 1954, and an external mosaic for the New York School of Printing (now the High School of Graphic Communications Arts) a couple of years later at 439 East 49th Street. The mural inside the midtown office building is four-sided, wrapped around an elevator bank with a sweeping flowing abstract design, much like a large Hofmann painting. The school’s 64- by 11-foot mural is also abstract, but with several distinct sections.

Both mosaic murals are made up of tesserae (irregular-shaped glass tiles) of many colors, which are smaller than a postage stamp. Mosaic specialists then apply them to the wall using the paper-mounted indirect method. Typically, the painter creates the original artwork in small scale, which specialists then enlarge on paper to fill the desired size of the final mosaic. The paper is then flipped over, divided into several sections, and the faces of the tiles glued to each section of the paper. Mortar is applied to the wall and the back of each section of tiles is placed on the mortar on the wall. When the mortar and back of the tiles are firmly together, the paper is removed and the mosaic is complete. 

The Bruce Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 to 5 and Sunday from 1 to 5. Docent tours are offered most Fridays at 12:30. For further information, contact 203-869-0376 or www.brucemuseum.org.

Works by Hans Hofmann used with permission of the Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust