Hans Hartung
b. 1904, France
d. 1989
Hans Hartung (b.1904, Leipzig, Germany; d.1989, Antibes, France) is remembered for his dynamic and experimental practice, which evokes a powerful sense of self expression. The artist’s visual language established him as a leader in the field of 20th century abstraction and has had a profound influence over subsequent generations of artists, proving particularly inspirational to the trajectory of American lyrical abstraction in the 1960s and 1970s. He was at the forefront of French avant-garde art for his calligraphic abstract paintings. Known for his distinct linear motifs and rapid brushstrokes, Hartung’s abstraction focused on the dynamism created through quality of line, brushstroke and colour.
Having attended the Akademie für Graphische Künste und Kunstgewerbe in Leipzig, in 1925 Hartung enrolled at the Akademie der Künste in Dresden. In 1932, he left Germany for the island of Minorca but later settled in Paris, after a brief return to Germany in 1935, where he was subjected to police surveillance and interrogation. In Paris, Hartung became acquainted with Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Joan Miró and formed a close friendship with sculptor Julio González. Hartung’s works were exhibited for the first time in 1931 at a solo show at Galerie Heinrich Kühn, Dresden. In 1938, he participated in the anti-Nazi exhibition, Twentieth-Century German Art, held at the New Burlington Galleries in London. With the outbreak of war imminent, Hartung voiced his opposition to the Nazi regime and joined the French Foreign Legion, bound for North Africa. Following demobilisation in 1940, he returned to France, working as a farm labourer in the Lot region and rarely painted. As the Occupation spread, Hartung sought asylum in Spain but was imprisoned there for seven months. Following his release, he re-joined the Foreign Legion but, seriously injured in an attack, had his right leg amputated.
Returning to Paris in 1945, Hartung was granted French citizenship. He was awarded the Military Medal, the Croix de Guerre and, in 1952, the Legion of Honour. He then returned to painting and began to exhibit his work, having his first solo show in Paris at the Galerie Lydia Conti. Hartung’s work was included in the group show Advancing French Art, organised by the dealer Louis Carré in 1951, which toured North America. His first museum retrospective was held at the Kunsthalle Basel the following year. Between 1954 and 1955, Hartung made hundreds of India ink drawings, which he transferred into oils on canvas that retain the spontaneous feel of his drawings. Major exhibitions were held in 1954 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and Kunsthaus Zürich in 1963. In 1960 Hartung won the Gran Premio for Painting at the Venice Biennale. He received the Great Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964 and, at the invitation of the Carnegie Institute, made his first trip to the United States. A large-scale retrospective was held at the Musée d’Art moderne, in Paris, in 1969, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, exhibited recent works in 1975. In 1981, the Städtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf and the Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich organised a major retrospective. Hartung became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1977 and was elevated to the rank of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour by President François Mitterand in 1989. The Fondation Hartung Bergman was established in 1994. In 2019, the newly renovated Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris was inaugurated with a major Hartung retrospective, La Fabrique du Geste, which positioned Hartung at the forefront of abstraction and reaffirmed his importance in modern European art.