Customer Reviews (2)

Hans Hofmann's rectangles and powerful colors
This convenient volume explores Hans Hofmann's abstract canvases--especially during the 1950's and the 1960's. The reproductions are printed in glorious colors with easy-to-read text alongside. Plenty of visual surprises are found in many of Hofmann's paintings. Interesting note here: many of the illustrated paintings in this book are in the collection of the University of Berkeley Museum of Art in California. Hofmann's paintings turned triumphant in the late 1950's and his work even got better towards the end of his life at age 85.

Understanding the Two- Dimensional Picture Plane
This work helps to clarify the importance of Hans Hofmann's works and why he is considered one of the most important art teachers of the 20th century. This work is especially important to any artist wanting to becomethe best they can become in their field. The ideas presented by Hofmann cantake a lifetime to "master", but well worth the effort. His ideasare more than just "theory", they are a basic understanding ofhow to enliven a flat pictorial space and how to infuse oneself in one'swork. ... Read more

Product Description
Nature's purpose in relation to the visual arts is to provide stimulus-not imitation....From its ceaseless urge to create springs all Life-all movement and rhythm-time and light, color and mood-in short, all reality in Form and Thought." -Hans Hofmann

This book is the only comprehensive treatment of one of Abstract Expressionism's most important forefathers: Hans Hofmann. Hans Hofmann attends to every stage of his prolific career.Nearly 300 gorgeous color plates reveal this modern master's extraordinary sense of color: beautifully vibrant greens, rich blues and brilliant reds organized in strikingly powerful patterns. Sam Hunter, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, writes a substantive essay on every aspect of Hofmann's distinguished body of work. Five important essays by the artist himself are included, revealing his philosophy of art which was so influential to the generations that followed him. Frank Stella, an important painter who deeply admired his work, also contributes an essay. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Tribute to Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was one of the most influential teachers of the twentieth century and this exquisite volume is a fitting tribute to his contribution to the understanding and development of abstract expressionism. I have always admired Hofmann and was overwhelmed when I first saw his paintings in Berkeley at the art museum in 1977.
I was especially pleased that an excellent book has been published about his legacy.It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful art books I have ever purchased. The color reproductions are worthy of Hofmann's genius as a colorist and they convey the passion and boldness of his painting technique. The essays are well written and valuable, especially Sam Hunter's analyses of individual paintings and the chronological development of Hofmann's work. The book is a work of art and well worth the investment.

Rizzoli needs to publish more art books like this!
Simply put--This is the new benchmark for how an art book should be constructed.


An amazingly packaged book, complete with an outer cardboard and matte finished laminated paper printed sleeve to house the book when not in use. (see photo) Well worth the $80.00 I have spent. And yes, the color plates are superlative--alone worth the asking price!!!

I would like Rizzoli to continue the tradition with the popular as well as the lesser known artists of the Abstract Expressionist period, and the various artists from the Dada and Bauhaus schools.
Their idea of construction, layout, and packaging should be the new industry standard.

That would be a sublime treat for me and I am sure it would be for other artists as well!

A real Gem
I knew this would be a great book when I ordered it but when I received it I was overwhelmed by its quality, a slip-in hard cover and beautifully bound hard cover book inside.
It containes a large number of high quality colour plates (possibly all his work), and an excellent description of Hans Hofmann's thought processes in the introduction by Sam Hunter and as a bonus, 5 essays written by Hans Hofmann.A real asset for any artist who has an interest in the development and progression of abstract painting from the 1920's to 60's.

True Colors
This is the finest Hofmann book I have seen.

The combination of hue clarity, nuance, and sharp focus of the plates acurately recreates the space of the paintings and really lets them sing.

The brush and knifework, even the weave of the canvases are all crystal clear in the reproductions.

This solidly constructed book is a work of art in itself.

Five stars aren't enough.........
This book deserves 7 stars.The plates are superlative, and the coloration is excellent.Coloration is a problem that plagues most books about Hofmann (among others).His use of reds and magentas can be difficult to reproduce with proper balance.Frequently, the results are that the plates appear somewhat anemic or the reds take on an exaggerated neon character that is hard on the eyes.Here, then, is a feast for the Hofmann enthusiast with nearly 300 pictures, practically all of them in exquisite color. This is an experience second only to actually viewing a Hofmann exhibit first hand.In my opinion, the plates alone make this book a worthy acquisition.But there's more.

Other particulars making this book a great addition to any bookshelf dedicated to Modern Art are five essays by Hofmann on art: "Plastic Creation", "The Search for the Real in Visual Arts", "The Resurrection of the Plastic Arts", "The Color Problem in Pure Painting" and "Sculpture".This is not to mention an excellent Introduction by Sam Hunter and wonderful essays by Tina Dickey and Frank Stella.Of course,there are the requisite features of a monograph: a brief (perhaps a little too brief, but who can complain at this point) chronology of Hofmann's life, and a selected list of exhibitions.Add to all of the above the attractive binding, a sturdy and handsome slipcase (which is what is pictured above), and what you have is a unique and appealing presentation of Hans Hofmann, his life, his work, his thoughts and his place in Twentieth Century Art.

This book is enthusiastically recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
"The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature—translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive and every work of art should be alive."

Thus Hans Hofmann wrote nearly half a century ago. He left the Old World—Germany—for the New, at the age of 50. In 1948 when the retrospective exhibition was held at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Hofmann was 68; he had been in the United States for 18 years, a citizen for seven years. Yet he was scarcely recognized in Europe or America as an artist of significance and had never had a full-scale retrospective exhibition of his work. Beginning with a group exhibition in Germany in 1909, he had been given 12 one-man shows and had been included in four group exhibitions before the exhibit at Andover. Subsequently, he was to have 33 one-man shows and to be in over 60 group exhibitions, including the 1960 Venice Biennale, in which he was one of the four artists chosen to represent America.

The catalogue of the 1948 retrospective at the Addison Gallery incorporated Hofmann's writings, all originally written in German, some pieces translated fluently, others awkwardly paraphrasing the original. He had written them over a period of 40 years for periodicals journals, or his own teaching purposes; occasionally they overlapped; there was no sequence of development. In the original volume of Search for the Real, published in 1948, it was felt desirable to edit his writing as little as possible, nevertheless to present the essays in the most lucid English true to his meaning, printed only with his approval. "The Search for the Real in the Visual Arts," "Sculpture," and "Painting and Culture" were all printed in full. The section "Excerpts from the Teaching of Hans Hofmann" Was composed of selections from his essays "On the Aims of Art," and "Plastic Creation." The last brief section, "Terms," was gleaned from the other essays, lectures, diagrams, notes, and cryptic memoranda written to himself; headed by one of Hoffman's diagrams. It was a further distillation of his own definitions in the nature of a vocabulary.

In the last 18 years of his life recognition was his—nationally and internationally—in proportion to the originality and depth of his thinking, his versatility and comprehensiveness, his productivity and vigor. His was a prophetic visual expression of action in a three-dimensional world on a vibrating two-dimensional surface. He was a dynamic teacher; the wide range of his influence is to be seen in the list of artists comprising an exhibition "Hans Hofmann and His Students," circulated in America and abroad during the three years before his death in 1966. Among the 32 painters and sculptors in this exhibition were students as varied in their developed personal idioms as Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Rivers, Louise Nevelson, Richard Stankiewicz, and Alan Kaprow. Running simultaneously and also shown in South America and Europe as well as in the United States, a one-man show of 40 major works initiated by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, is a testimony to the words of the "dean of the New York School of Abstract-Expressionist Painting." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An Artist's Metaphysics of Art
Hofmann has received more and more attention from scholars and writers on art as time has gone by. This is the essential collection of his lucid and illuminating remarks on art. Hofmann's writings (along with Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" and other neglected texts) give the lie to the formal aesthetic analysis of art historians who have pigeon-holed abstract expressionism as the species of disruptive innovation that it was and nothing more, when in reality its practitioners had deeply personal philosophical and spiritual concerns. Hofmann believed that the artist must translate his feelings for nature into a creative interpretation of the medium. In other words, "to explore the nature of the medium (i.e., the paint) is part of the understanding of creation, as well as part of the process of creation." So the artist doesn't create a mirror image of nature, but rather the artist communicates an engagement with the essence of things through the creation of art (e.g., a painting) that becomes a shining, transcendent, "spiritual" object in its own right. He took a Hegelian approach - the artist's interior life, plus the medium, creates a "spiritual synthesis" that is a new thing in the world.

Heady stuff, and not for the faint of brain, but if you're not a stranger to philosophy or otherwise willing to explore the nuances of what happens when an artist approaches the canvas (what Hofmann calls "the blending of experience gained in life with the natural qualities of the art medium") then you just found the Artist's Bible for the post-representational world of expression.

could pass
I had to read this book for a class.Unless you're a die hard Hans Hoffman fan it's definitely not a must read.The book really shoots all over and is difficult to read I found.There are much better art theory books out there along with books that will tellyou a lot more about hans hoffman.If you're looking for an art theory book " The Art Question " or " Art and Fear" are much better books.

Very interesting
Hans Hofmann's biography is very colorful. And his essay "Search for the Real" was a good read for any artist.Even if you don't really understand it or agree with his ideas, the descriptions of plasticity and push/pull are very enlightening.I'm sure he was an amazing teacher.This book is a good read for any artist, as well as for people who do not make art (to get a better understanding of the mind of the artist).This book was great! I recommend Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" as a wonderful companion to this book.Between the two your mind can encompass art and thinking that is related to art in new (maybe even familiar) ways. ... Read more

Product Description
Hans Hofmann's art "has the authority of pure vision. Van Gogh had that. Picasso has it. And Hans Hofmann also has a place with those giants who move straight into the light without being blinded by it."—Tennessee Williams, 1949

The painter Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) is one of the most important figures in post-war American art. In his lifetime, he came to be admired for his exuberant, color-filled canvases, but it was as an influential teacher, first in his native Germany, later in New York and Provincetown, that he was most renowned. Today, he is celebrated a giant of twentieth-century abstraction, and his pivotal role, along with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky, in the development of Abstract Expressionism is widely acknowledged. Published to accompany a retrospective of the artist's work at the Naples Museum of Art, Florida, Hans Hofmann examines the full range of his achievement and influence as both artist and theorist.

As a painter, Hofmann was distinguished by his ability to create expressive drama and evocative space with contrasts of intense color, richly modulated surfaces, and a vocabulary of shapes ranging from the geometric to the calligraphic. As a teacher, he brought to America first-hand knowledge of the work of such European modernists as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, who he met as a young man studying in Paris, during the early years of twentieth-century modernism. As a theorist, he developed an original philosophy of what a work of art could be, which formed the basis of his teaching, lectures, and essays. One of these statements, about the role of color in painting, is included in Hans Hofmann. More than sixty paintings highlight key stages of Hofmann's career, with a generous representation of works from the late flowering of his last decades, when he produced many of his most inventive pictures. 63 illustrations in color, 10 in black and white. ... Read more

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Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) is one of the most important figures of post-war American art, for both his own abstract paintings and his influence as the legendary teacher of generations of artists in Germany, New York, and Provincetown. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

hans hoffman, with selected writings by the artist
This item was listed as a book, when in fact it was an exhibition catalog ... Read more

Product Description
Celebrated for his exuberant, color-packed canvases, and legendarily influential as a teacher to several generations of artists-first in his native Germany, then in New York and Provincetown-Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) looms large indeed over postwar American painting. Circa 1950 accompanies The Rose Art Museum's examination of the nine studies for murals that Hofmann produced for the Chimbote Project, architect Josep Sert's 1950 Peruvian urban planning project. These works show Hofmann hitting an apex in his art: his canvasses spill over with gloriously messy energy, and palpable physicality, as they riff on strong, anchoring, circular, angular and cruciform forms. This full-color catalogue embellishes images from the project with essays by curators Michael Rush and Catherine Morris, and renowned critic Irving Sandler. ... Read more

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Hofmann was one of the most influential European artists in the birth of American abstract expressionism. This catalogue contains the pieces that Hofmann conceived to decorate the church in Chimbote, Perú, commissioned to the Catalan architect Josep-Lluís Sert but never built.This publication extensively documents the proposal in its historical context, aiming to offer a wider interpretation on the twentieth-century project of a renewed collaboration between art and architecture. ... Read more

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Hardcover, 9 1/2 x 11, with illustrated boards and no dust jacket. A record of the Hans Hofmann | Exuberant Eye exhibit at the KN Gallery in Chicago, May through June 2007. ... Read more