by Karl Kasten
Oil paint dries slowly, not by evaporation, but
slowly, by oxidation beginning at the surface then finally
forming a solid mass after some time.
Hans Hofmann taught me to paint with vigor, to use my
arm as well as my hand, to use pigment as an expressive
material, that is, to consider the manner in which color is
applied- rapidly or slowly, in a thick or a thin impasto, etc. A
painting reflecting Hofmann's concepts hangs in Gallery 18 in
New York. It is quite large, 52 by 42 inches, the title is
"Scepter." The New York painter, Norman Kanter, visiting my
studio in Berkeley last year, saw this painting and invited me
to show it in an exhibition at Gallery 18, which he had been
asked to curate. I accepted with alacrity and told him the
story of another painting, "Storm," similar in color and form
to "Scepter" and completed the same year, 1960.
I had studied with Hofmann at his summer school in
Provincetown under auspices of the "G.I. Bill" (a program for
veterans of World War II). In 1961, I was invited to participate
in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, "Hans
Hofmann and His Students." I shipped "Storm." A week later,
a call came from New York saying , "We regret that your
painting cannot be hung because areas of the painting are
not dry, please send another work." Then I sent "Scepter," it
appeared to be totally dry. Again a call came telling me that
it, too, had thick linear forms in which he skin was dry but
could be broken and soft color underneath could be smeared.
Both paintings were returned.
Hans Hofmann stands as fine artist and a great teacher,
but no man stands alone. In his immediate past was Van
Gogh with thick impasto painting, Gauguin with bright,
abstract color, Cezanne, working with facets of color. There
were the German expressionists- Beckman and Marc, the
Viennese- Klimpt and Kokoshka, the Bauhaus with Kandinsky
and Klee. He gave up a promising career in engineering to
study art in Munich and at 24 went to Paris for further study
and became associated with Picasso, Matisse, and Braque and
the colorists Sonia and Robert Delauney. With the outbreak of
war in 1914, he was forced to leave and return to Munich.
Due to a lung ailment, he was not drafted into the army and
in 1915 established an art school which many veterans
attended. His fame as a teacher of avant garde concepts
spread, concepts of form which he had developed largely
during his ten years in Paris. Americans went to Germany to
study with him including Louise Nevelson, Cameron Booth,
Vaclav Vytlacil, John Haley, and Worth Ryder.
Ryder was to play a major role in Hofmann's destiny. He
had studied at the University of California in Berkeley, class of
1907. He left to study at the Art Students League in New
York, then went on to Europe. He completed study with
Hofmann in 1927 when he received an invitation to join the
art department at Berkeley. Three years later, he arranged for
Hofmann's appointment to teach in the summer of 1930.
That same year, Ryder was able to arrange for the
appointment of two former Hofmann students to become
regular faculty members, Margaret Peterson and John Haley.
Erle Loran, who had studied with Cameron Booth in
Minneapolis, came in 1936. Their work, influenced by
Hofmann's concepts, formed what came to be known as the
Berkeley School from 1930 to 1950.
Hofmann returned to teach again at Berkeley in the
summer of 1931, then went to Los Angeles to teach at the
Chouinard Art School. He decided with his wife, Maria, to
remain in America. In 1933, he established his school in New
York City which soon attracted students from around the
country. The esteem in which he was held by the 1950s was
reflected in the popular statement, " Most every painter who
became a success in New York, either studied with Hofmann
or their wives did."
Hofmann conducted a summer school in Provincetown
where I studied with him in 1951. He was a large man, an
easygoing person. When he learned that I had been a
teaching assistant to Worth Ryder, he granted me special
status and talked with me in confidence. He told me that in
gratitude to Worth Ryder, who had initiated his coming to
America in 1930, he and his wife planned to bequeath their
entire estate to the University in Berkeley for the furtherance
of art education. Fate had it that his wife pre-deceased him
and he subsequently remarried, that plan was not to be
realized. However, in honor of Ryder, in 1963, he made a gift
of forty-five paintings and the sum of $250,000, a fund that
became the seed money for the construction of the University
Art Museum, one of the finest in the country. In 1958, he
gave up teaching and began to devote his full energies to
painting. His theories are presented in a book of 90 pages,
"The Search for the Real," which he wrote and was published
in 1948. An excellent anthology, "Hans Hofmann," by Cynthia
Goodman was published by the Whitney Museum in 1990.
The summer I spent at his school on Cape Cod was critical
in my career. I learned to appreciate the meaning of his
credo, "push-pull"; all areas of a composition should act in
concert and present a unity. If one element of a composition,
tended to "push" out of the picture plane, then another
should "pull" it in. If one element is strident, like the intense
red line in "Scepter," then another element, i.e., a color,
shape, or texture, should hold it within the composition. He
would expound on his theories in the morning sessions at the
school which were devoted to drawing from the model in
charcoal. All activity would stop when he entered the large
studio and the students would follow him as he went from
easel to easel giving critiques of each individual's drawing. To
illustrate his points, he often would tear a drawing into
rectanglar pieces and reassemble them on the drawing board
to explain "doss shifting." Another procedure involved his
drawing a small picture plane on the student's work and show
with arrows how form may have been made to move
horizontally or vertically (these drawings are now collector's
items). He would also use hand gestures to explain a point.
He often said of my drawing "It needs more of ziss" moving
his hands horizontally. The final day of class, he looked at my
drawing and said, "It needs more of ziss" and moved his
hands vertically!
After the late 1940s, more former Hofmann students, or
New York artists showing his influence, were to join the
Berkeley faculty- Glenn Wessels, Wilfred Zogbaum, Felix
Ruvolo, and Sid Gordin. The department produced many
artists who won distinction, among them were- Sam Francis,
Elmer Bischoff, Ynez Johnston, Walter Askin, and Jay De Feo.
© Karl Kasten 10/15/04
Republished with permission from the author.
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