Form for Movement's Sake

The celebrated and influential teaching of Hans Hofmann is presented through the voices of the artist and his former students

 

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) was a German-born American painter known for his prominent role in the emergence of Abstract Expressionism and widely revered as one of the most influential art teachers of the twentieth century. Excerpts from dozens of oral histories conducted by Tina Dickey with Hofmann’s former students form the backbone of this book, effectively bringing the reader into the atelier of this illustrious teacher.

 

Chapters on Hofmann’s teaching explore compositional dynamics and the creative process, while chapters devoted to his biography provide context, illuminating Hofmann’s influences, his artistic milieus in Munich, Paris, San Francisco, and New York, and his thoughts on art education. This focused and streamlined adaptation of Dickey’s popular book Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann, originally published in 2011, includes images of work by Hofmann’s students, some with his corrections made in class; teaching diagrams and paintings by Hofmann; and archival photographs. Hofmann’s innovative approach, based on observations of structural movement, will interest those engaged with composition, whether literary, visual, theatrical, architectural, musical, or choreographic.