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Hans Hartung

"I try to fix the dynamics and constants of the forces that makes matter, light and spirit."

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Notes of biography

Hans Hartung was born in Leipzig (Germany) in 1904. He grew up with a musical sensibility due to his acquaintances, and kept it all his life long. He studied first to the Akademie der schönen Künste of the same city (1924-1926), then studied to the Fine Art of Munich. Hans Hartung liked the art of Rembrandt, Goya, Greco, but also Kokoschka, Nolde, and created abstracted works with a profound peculiarity.
In 1928, he met Anna-Eva Bergman in Paris, a young Norwegian artist who came to study like him in France; they married in 1929. His first exhibition was organized in 1931. He left Germany in 1932, travelled in Europe, then settled down in Paris in 1935. He painted then watercolours and abstract canvases.
In 1944, Hans Hartung joined the Foreign Legion; he got injured and his right leg was amputated. In 1945, he got the french naturalization. His art reflected his nightmares and sufferings in an abstract and lyric painting. He covered his canvases with hatchings and whirlwinds, big dark masses drawn in the Indian ink, in the oil or in the pastel. The artist thought that only the "tachisme" could say the despair of the horrors of the war.
Hans Hartung got the first price of “la Biennale de Venise” in 1960. At that time, Hartung began to paint acrylic on big formats, alternately struck or scratched by fast touches. He "stigmatized" his painting by means of brooms, combs and branches. The artist made every effort with his work to fix the dynamism and the constancy of the forces which create the material, the light and the spirit. In 1986, Hartung began a series of very colored works where he threw “coulures” and strainings on wrapping paper. During the last three years of his life, Hartung was always looking for an artistic revival work to offer, offer himself, an ultimate period of creation. His wife, Anna-Eva Bergman disappeared in 1987. Hans Hartung died in 1989 in Antibes (France). According to his wishes, his ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea.
Hans Hartung, in his lifetime, will have received all the honorings and all the honors. It is in Antibes that just opened to the public a centre -having the artist name- museum and centre of study on his work (2006).

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
Les estampes », en ligne, Fondation Hartung-Bergman, 2010. L’Oeuvre peint et dessiné 1914-1944 », en ligne, Fondation Hartung-Bergman, 2016. All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Hartung », P. Descargues, Cercle d’Art, Paris, 1977
  • « Hans Hartung », MAM de la Ville de Paris, 1980
  • « Hans Hartung, monographie », Pierre Daix, Daniel Gervis/Ed. Milan, 1991
  • « Hartung x 3 », F. Kaisert & autres, Fondation Hartung, Paris, 2003
  • « Hartung - 10 perspectives », collectif, Ed. Les presses du réel, 2006
  • « Hans Hartung, le geste et la méthode », Michel Enrici, Ed. Fondation Maeght, 2008
  • « H. Hartung - Spray », H. Audiffren, C. Rondeau, cat., Silvana Ed., 2011
  • « H. Hartung et les peintres lyriques », X. Douroux, T. Schlesser, ed. Fond Leclerc, 2016
  • « H. H. - Peintre et légionnaire », collectif, Fond. Hartung-Bergman, Ed. Gallimard, 2016
  • « H. Hartung et la photographie (und die Fotografie) », Eva Schmidt, Hirmer Verlag, 2016
To read from the artist :
  • « Entretiens sur l'art abstrait », Raymond Bayer, Ed. Pierre Caillé, 1964
  • « Autoportrait », Grasset, 1976, réédition Les presses du réel, 2016
Website :
www.fondationhartungbergman.fr

More :


Art movements

+ SCHOOL OF PARIS / 1945-1960 / Jean Degottex, Georges Mathieu, Nicolas de Staël, etc.
+ LYRIC ART, ABSTRACT, TACHISM / 1950-1960 / Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover