Hans Hartung was a French painter with German roots who created his works in an abstract style. He was recognized for his highly decorative representation of black lines on colored background.
Background
Hans Hartung was born on September 21, 1904 in Leipzig, Germany (German Empire by the time) to a family where the father and grandfather were physicians. Although, Hartung ‘s father was an amateur painter and musician too.
Young Hartung who had a young sister was fascinated by astronomy, photography and lightning effects which he depicted in his sketchbooks named in his family as Hans’ Books of Lightning (Blitzbücker).
Education
Hans Hartung began his education at the schools of Dresden where the family lived during the World War I. There, Hartung received his diploma in literature.
In 1924 the artist entered the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts (Akadamie für graphische Künst und Kunstgewerbe) in Germany where he studied history of art and philosophy attending the courses by Wilhelm Pinder and Wassily Kandinsky. While in Dresden, Hartung explored the works of Georges Rouault Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Later, in Paris where the painter moved at the end of 1926, he got acquainted with the creations of Paul Cézanne and Van Gogh. It was at this time that Hans started to study himself the principles of harmony, its relations with mathematics, in particular, the notion of the golden section.
After the two-year stint in France, the artist moved to Munich to ameliorate his artistic experience under the tutelage of a German artist Max Doerner. A year later, Hans returned to France.
In 1956, Hartung became an honorary member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.
Hans Hartung debute one-man show was organized in 1931 in Dresden at the Gallery of Heinrich Kühl but it was not successful for the artist, although one of the presented works was bought by an art collector Fritz Bienert. The first presentation was followed the next year by the exhibition of the Young Artists in Berlin and the exhibition with Anna-Eva Bergman at the Blomqvist Gallery in Oslo, Norway.
Then, after his father’s death, the artist moved with his spouse to a Spanish island Minorca. He returned to Germany in 1935 in order to sell some of his works, but was rejected by the Nazi Germany because of his painting style considered incompatible with its ideology. The same year, the artist settled down in Paris.
A year later, Hartung took part at the exhibition organized at the Pierre Loeb Gallery and opened his own studio. Since then, the artist exhibited annually at the salons of “Surindépendants”.
During the international exhibition organized by Christian Zervos in 1937 where the painter presented his large work called T. 1936-14, Hans got acquainted with a sculptor Julio González at whose studio he started to work. In 1939, the artist had his last exhibition before the World War II along with Roberta González at the Henriette Gallery in Paris.
On December of the same year, Hans Hartung enrolled at the French Foreign Legion. While on the War, the artist lost his right leg. After the War, in 1945, Hans became a French citizen.
Two years later, Hartung presented his works at the solo exhibition in Paris at the Lydia Conti Gallery. It brought the artist a great success and he was marked by critics, art collectors and colleagues. This presentation was followed by other shows in Europe, United States, Japan and Latin America. So, in 1955, the artist demonstrated his works at the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany and at the International Biennale of engraving in Ljubljana where he took part regularly till 1979. By the end of 1950s, Hans Hartung had become one of the leading post-war artists in Paris.
During the 1960 and after, the artist took part at many exhibitions and cultural events all around the world including Russia, the Nethrlands, Lebanon and Japan (1966, an international symposium by UNESCO). Many catalogues and retrospectives on the artist’s work were published since then as well.
In 1973, Hartung and his wife settled down in the studio "Champ des Oliviers" in Antibes on the French Riviera where they lived till the end of their lives. Three years later, the artist published book called "Autoportrait" where he gathered all his memories.
Quotations:
"They [thunderbolts] gave me the sense of the speed of the line, the desire to grasp with the pencil or the brush the instantaneous."
"In my opinion the painting which is called abstract is none of the "Isms" of which there have been so many lately, it is neither a "style" nor an "epoch" in art history, but merely a new means of expression, a different human language - one which is more direct than that of earlier painting."
"The first and most important thing is to remain free, free in each line you undertake, in your ideas and in your political action, in your moral conduct. The artist especially must remain free from all outer restraints."
"One must never forbid oneself anything. One must also be able to go back, one must always be able to change."
"Everything we feel deeply must be expressed."
Membership
Akademie der Künste
,
Germany
1956
Académie des Beaux-Arts
,
France
1977
Interests
mathematics
Artists
Rembrandt, Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky
Connections
Hans Hartung met his first wife, an artist Anna-Eva Bergman, in Paris in 1929. They married a few months later and had lived together for nine years.
In 1939, Hartung married for the second time. This time his wife was an artist Roberta González.
After the second War, the painter met again his first spouse and they renewed their relationships and remarried in 1957 after Hartung’s divorce with Roberta.