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Art since 1900

Art since 1900

In 1932, Hans Hofmann emigrated to the United States after having studied, painted and taught in Paris and Germany. He began teaching at the Art Students League in New York City and later opened his own school there and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The artist transmitted much of his knowledge of European modernist theory to such well-known students as Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Larry Rivers. He was an important figure in the emerging American Abstract Expressionist movement.

In Undulating Expanse, a great red orb, perhaps representing the sun, dominates a brilliantly colored landscape. The painting's title and composition -- unified by energized brushstrokes and thick passages of paint -- allude to a cosmic rather than earthly terrain. While Hofmann's paintings are often discussed in terms of their formal qualities, this work suggests an important spiritual dimension. Hofmann was influenced by the improvisational paintings of the early twentieth-century painter Wassily Kandinsky and may have been familiar with Kandinsky's book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911). Considered one of the artist's best paintings, Undulating Expanse exceptionally balances formal, emotional and spiritual elements. Its unusual horizontal format can be attributed to its connection to a mural commission that was never executed.