Hans Hartung

Hans Hartung was a French painter, photographer and architect of German extraction. The “painter of flashes of lightning”, he was a pioneer of Lyrical Abstraction with Gérard Schneider and Pierre Soulages.

G 11 – 1953

Etching and aquatint on Arches paper
Artist proof
Artwork: 38 x 52 cm / 14.9 x 20.4 in.
Sheet: 50 x 65 cm / 19.6 x 25.5 in.
Signed “Hartung” lower right

This engraving is referenced in the Catalog raisonné of the prints of Hans Hartung

LYRICAL ABSTRACTION
PARIS 1945-1995

Published by the Galerie Diane de Polignac and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts
Exhibition Catalog
English – 21 pages – nov. 2014

Hans Hartung before the First World War: Youth between Germany and Switzerland

Hans (Heinrich Ernst) Hartung was born on September 21^st, 1904 in Leipzig, Germany. His grandfather was a doctor, but also an amateur painter and musician. He played an important part in the education of the young Hans Hartung. The artist claimed “through him, through the influence he had on my mother, we were imbued with painting and music (…). At home, music accompanied the air we breathed.”
Hans Hartung’s vocation as an artist came early. He started to draw in his school exercise books from a very young age. “I sensed a bewitching terror in thunder storms, I vibrated under their force, their power. My school books filled with pages and pages of lightning bolts. My father called them Hans’s ‘Blitzbücher’, the books with bolts of lightning. My childhood books had, I’m sure, an influence on my artistic development, on my way of painting. They gave me a feeling for the speed of the line, the desire to grasp the instantaneous with the pencil or the paintbrush.”
The Hartung family lived in Basel in Switzerland from 1912 to 1914, where the father worked on pharmaceutical research. The young Hans Hartung became fascinated by astronomy and photography. He built himself a telescope and adapted a camera to it. Hans Hartung continued practicing drawing when he hiked around the Swiss mountains: he drew landscapes on site.
In 1914, the war forced the family to return to Leipzig. The following year, Hans Hartung’s father became chief of medicine at the military hospital of Dresden. These events influenced the artist’s work: “I stopped drawing flashes of lightning. My sketchbooks were also at war. Dresden was the centre for building zeppelins. I very quickly learned how to reproduce their enormous threatening bellies.”

The Post-War Period and First Abstract works of the Painter Hans Hartung

Hans Hartung attended secondary school at Dresden until 1924. He started to make free copies of the paintings he saw in books and museums: Rembrandt, Goya, Frans Hals, El Greco, and as early as 1921 he discovered the German Expressionists: Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. Hans Hartung simplified the compositions of the works he observed and only retained the coloured masses.
From 1922, Hans Hartung painted a series of 33 watercolours that were already abstract. The painter referred to them: “I liked my marks. I liked that they were enough to create a face, a body, a landscape. These marks which, shortly afterwards, wanted their complete autonomy and their freedom. Initially, I used them to capture the subject that gradually became negative, white, empty and ultimately a simple pretext for a pattern of marks. What joy then to let them free and play among themselves, to acquire their own expressivity, their own relations, their dynamism without being subject to reality.” These works were illustrated in the book by Will Grohmann Hans Hartung Aquarelle 1922 published in 1966. This author emphasizes their pioneering character. Between 1923 and 1924, Hans Hartung drew with charcoal and red chalk on paper. He experimented with his line, which was free, rhythmed, and perfected his artistic vocabulary.

Hans Hartung continued his studies of philosophy and art history at the Leipzig Akademie für Graphische Künste und Kunstgewerbe. In 1925, he attended a lecture by Kandinsky there. The painter Hans Hartung was at the time opposed to his point of view about non-figurative art, which he found too dogmatic: “His discourse about the use and symbolism of the circle, the oval, the square and the rectangle nether seduced nor convinced me. I really didn’t want at all to paint serpentine lines representing eternity.”
The death of Hans Hartung’s mother that year forced him to return to Dresden, where he registered at the Akademie der Künste.
The following year, the Dresden International Exhibition allowed him to experience modern painting from abroad for the first time, especially Impressionism, Fauvism and French Cubism. It had a profound effect: “This search for plasticity, order, rigour, this simplification of colours gave me the impression of an unheard-of desire to create for eternity.”

The Painter Hans Hartung in France

During the summer of 1926, Hartung cycled around Italy and France and in October settled in Paris. He didn’t frequent the art world very much, but registered at the Sorbonne “with the firm intention of never crossing its threshold”, at André Lhote’s academy, and then at Fernand Léger’s school, which he left quickly. He wrote: “Fernand Léger only accepted one way of painting: his way. We had to copy him, serve him and enslave ourselves. I only stayed for 2 weeks.” Hans Hartung preferred to copy the old masters at the Louvre and modern artists at art galleries.
In 1927, he visited the south of France. He admired the works of Cézanne and Van Gogh there. He began to study aesthetics and mathematics and became interested in the Golden Ratio: “Gradually I returned to abstract art, although I had developed with contradictory experiences. But I didn’t need proof or certainties. I found them in the Golden Ratio, the mysteries of which I was bent on solving, of which I analysed all the possibilities (…) the Golden Ratio is a search for harmony, of a proper balance (…) with this, I felt I was participating in the forces that govern nature.”
In 1928, the painter Hans Hartung attended the lectures given by Max Dörner in Munich on painting techniques. There, he tested the theories of the Golden Ratio by cutting out pieces of white canvas. He visited the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1929, Hans Hartung, married the young Norwegian painter Anna-Eva Bergman whom he had met a few months earlier in Paris.

Hans Hartung’s First Exhibitions

In 1931, Hans Hartung exhibited his art for the first time at the Heinrich Kühl Galerie in Dresden. The industrialist Fritz Bienert, who was also a patron and collector, bought one of Hans Hartung’s works there. The painter was represented a second time, at the exhibition Jungen Künstler (Young Artists) at the Flechtheim Galerie in Berlin. A first exhibition was also held abroad, at Oslo in Norway, where his paintings were showed alongside those of his wife at the Blomqvist Kunstgalleri.
In 1932, the death of Hans Hartung’s father opened a dark period in the painter’s life. The rise of national-socialism forced him to leave Germany. He left a few paintings with the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in Paris, and settled in the Balearic Islands with his wife, where they built a house that he designed.
Due to a lack of money, the couple returned to Paris in 1934, stayed for a while in Stockholm and finally returned to Berlin in the hope of improving their financial circumstances. In Germany, Hans Hartung opposed the Nazi regime. He was spied upon and interrogated, in particular due to his friendships with Jewish and communist artists. So he left Germany definitively, thanks to help from the art critics Will Grohmann and Christian Zervos, and settled in Paris.

Exile in Paris for the Painter Hans Hartung

In Paris, Hans Hartung was friendly with Jean Hélion, Henri Goetz, Vassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Alberto Magnelli, César Domela, Joan Miró and Alexander Calder. He exhibited at the Galerie Pierre Loeb in 1936 and, until the war, he sent works every year to the Salon des Surindépendants. Hans Hartung described this difficult period: “black and anxious painting that reflected my stress, my great pessimism about the future, series of drawings and a few canvases that were later called ‘The Ink Stains’ ”.
In 1937, Christian Zervos organized the Exposition Internationale at the Jeu de Paume. Hans Hartung showed a large canvas covered in black bands. Hartung also discovered the sculptures of Julio González there, which left a very strong aesthetic impression on him.

Many of the artists living in Paris suffered from poverty and a lack of equipment to create. The painter Jean Hélion gave Hans Hartung precious advice: “if you have the possibility of buying a canvas and to paint the sketch you have done, stay faithful to your sketch. Don’t change anything in it. Even keep the accidents, the unexpected details that have come from the technique of watercolour, pencil, ink or wax. Try to stay fresh, natural. It’s very difficult, but your painting will benefit from it.” To save money, Hans Hartung developed a habit of copying his drawings and transferring them to oil on canvas by squaring. The painter continued using this technique until 1960. What he called his “calculated spontaneity” remained unknown during his lifetime.

Hans Hartung’s financial situation did not improve. Anna-Eva Bergman suffered from a long illness and asked for a divorce. The German embassy withdrew Hartung’s passport. He was lodged by his friend the artist Henri Goetz and worked in the studio of Julio González with whom he was also very close. It was through contact with this sculptor that Hans Hartung created two sculptures, one of which was shown at the Salon des Surindépendants in 1938. The same year, he was included in the exhibition Twentieth Century German Art, organized by the New Burlington Galleries of London. This event celebrated the German artists who were considered “degenerate” by the Nazi regime.

In 1939, Hans Hartung exhibited his works at the Galerie Henriette in Paris alongside Roberta González, the daughter of his sculptor friend. He also presented a painting at the first Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. Hans Hartung married Roberta González the same year.

Hans Hartung during the Second World War

Hartung joined the list of voluntary opponents to Hitler’s regime, and was mobilised and entered the Foreign Legion: he was then sent to North Africa to receive military training.
Hans Hartung was demobilised after the armistice of 1940. He returned to the Zone Libre of France and lived with the González family in the Lot region. He then became an agricultural worker and painted very little. He created a series of Heads inspired by Julio González and by Picasso’s painting Guernica.

Julio González died suddenly in 1942. The south of France was occupied, so Hans Hartung left for exile in Spain where he was arrested by Franco’s police and imprisoned in the Miranda del Ebro concentration camp for seven months.
Freed by the consul of free France, he tried to join the regular French army, but was returned to the Foreign Legion because of his German nationality. Hans Hartung was injured in combat in 1944 and his right leg was amputated.

The Post-War Period and Revelation to the Public of Hans Hartung

In 1945, Hartung returned to Paris and took up working again. “My drawings were traversed by strange, kinked strokes that were bogged down, desperate, like scratches. This was vehement, rebellious painting. Like myself. I had the feeling of having been blurred. Apart from a few French colleagues who had been mobilized, the other painters had all spent the war as refugees somewhere. They hadn’t stopped working, making progress (…) I wanted to play the hero but not to pass then for an imbecile.”
Hans Hartung acquired French nationality the following year and received several decorations: the Médaille Militaire, the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’Honneur. He was involved in numerous exhibitions: at the Centre de Recherches rue Cujas, with César Domela and Gérard Schneider, at the Galerie Denise René and at the Galerie Colette Allendy.
It was during 1947 that Hans Hartung was truly revealed to the public, thanks to a solo exhibition at the Galerie Lydia Conti. Hans Hartung met the artists Pierre Soulages, Georges Mathieu and Mark Rothko at that time.

In 1948, Hans Hartung exhibited his drawings again at the Galerie Lydia Conti and participated in the travelling exhibition Wanderausstellung Französischer Abstrakter Malerei organized by the filmmaker Ottomar Domnick. The exhibition travelled to Stuttgart, Munich, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Frankfurt, Wuppertal and Kassel. Hans Hartung also showed at the exhibition HWPSMTB (Hartung, Wols, Picabia, Stahly, Mathieu, Tapié, Bryen) at the Galerie Colette Allendy in Paris. The art critic Madeleine Rousseau published the first book on the painter Hans Hartung’s work in 1949. The book also included texts by Ottomar Domnick and a preface by the writer James Johnson Sweeney. That year, an exhibition of drawings was held at the Modernen Galerie Otto Stangl in Munich, followed by a second one at the Hanover Gallery in London.

In 1951, works by Hans Hartung were shown for the first time in the USA at the exhibition Advancing French Art organized by Louis Carré. The artist also showed pastels at the Galerie Louis Carré in Paris, alongside paintings by Gérard Schneider and André Lanskoy. Hans Hartung participated the same year in the exhibition Véhémences Confrontées that Michel Tapié organized at the Galerie Nina Dausset in Paris.

In 1952, a retrospective was held at the Basel Kunsthalle. Hans Hartung also showed some paintings at the Venice Biennale. That year, for the first time since their separation in 1937, Hans Hartung saw Anna-Eva Bergman, who was living in France. He recalled: “Between us the charm was still just as powerful (…) so we decided to remarry. The hardest remained to be done: to inform our respective spouses of our decision.”
A change in Hans Hartung’s work can be seen at that time. They become brighter and more serene. In 1953, the artist had two solo exhibitions: at the Lefèvre Gallery of London and at the Galerie Marbach of Bern.

International Recognition for the Artist Hans Hartung

In 1954, Hans Hartung exhibited fifty paintings, twenty pastels and fifteen drawings at the Brussels Palais des Beaux-Arts. He also showed at the Venice Biennale and at exhibitions held at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris. Hans Hartung also continued to make photographs and created a large number of drawings in India ink. These large black signs that are born on the paper were then transposed onto canvas against coloured backgrounds. In 1955, Hans Hartung participated in the first Documenta at Kassel.
The painter Hans Hartung was elected extraordinary member of the Berlin Akademie des Künste in 1956. He exhibited at the Galerie de France, which agreed a contract with him. A retrospective of his drawings was also held at the Galerie Craven in Paris.
In 1957, exhibitions in Germany followed in succession: at Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover, at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, at the Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, at the Cologne Kunstverein, as well as at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum of Nuremberg. Hans Hartung also showed works in New York at the Kleeman Gallery. He remarried Anna-Eva Bergman and the following year they built a studio on the rue Gauguet in Paris that they had designed.

Hans Hartung showed at Documenta II in 1959. A retrospective at the museum of Antibes was devoted to him the same year. He also exhibited pastels at the Kleeman Gallery of New York.

Hartung began to prepare a vast catalogue of his work. This catalogue contains almost all of his works. Each one is referenced by a photograph, a sketch and various details.

In 1960, Hans Hartung was unanimously awarded the Grand Prize in painting at the Venice Biennale and one of the rooms in the French pavilion was entirely devoted to his work. Hans Hartung spoke about this consecration: “In 1960, a distinction pleased me even more than all the military honours (…) I had finally come out of the darkness of the black years.” The art critic Roger van Gindertaël published a monograph on the artist, published the same year.

Hans Hartung’s Techniques

Hartung changed his technique at this time. He abandoned squaring for transfer and began to use vinyl paints that dry quickly. This development allowed him to create large format works spontaneously: “From 1960, I began to improvise directly, even on large canvases, without using preliminary sketches (..) sometimes I don’t touch accidents, some scratches ore contradictions that have influenced the creation of the painting and which have given it more life.”
The artist also experimented by making scratches in the paint while it was still fresh. He was inspired to use this process by his practice of engraving, in which he scratched a metal plaque. For his “Grattages”, he used a large number of tools.

At that time, Hans Hartung participated in several foreign exhibitions: in Moscow, Eindhoven, Milan, Rome, Madrid, Córdoba and Beirut.

In 1963, a major travelling retrospective comprising 120 paintings on canvas, 150 drawings and pastels and a sculpture was held at the Zurich Kunsthaus, the Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts in Vienna, the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Sau Tedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. The following year, Hans Hartung was included in Documenta III as well as the Tate Gallery exhibition 54-64. Painting and Sculpture of a Decade in London.
In 1965, a retrospective of all the graphic works of Hans Hartung was shown at the Brunswick Städtisches Museum in Germany to coincide with the publication of the catalogue raisonné of graphic works (1921-1965) by the Rolf Schmücking Galerie.

The painter Hans Hartung created his first works with jet in 1966: they are mostly in a large format. The same year, a retrospective was shown at the Museo Civico of Turn with a group of about 200 works. Hans Hartung also exhibited at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York. Invited by UNESCO, Hartung attended the international symposium Art of the East and the West held in Japan. He was also included in the travelling exhibition Vingt Peintres Français that was shown in Belgium, Luxemburg and Denmark. His works were also included in the show 10 Années d’Art Vivant 1955-1965 at the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Hans Hartung: Triumph and Posterity

In 1968, Hans Hartung and Ana-Eva Bergman started construction of their house and two studios in an olive grove at Antibes. There again, Hans Hartung designed the plans: “the play of sun and shadow, the light reflected on the walls and ceilings by the white of the carefully inclined slats of the shutters are worth many canvases for a painter. And then the windows serve as pictures for me and through them, the unchanging landscape, which is nevertheless always different, of a sky shimmering through the silvery leaves of the olive trees.”

In 1969, the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris held a major retrospective with over 250 works by Hartung. A very large portion of this show then travelled to the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, the Quebec Museum and the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. The following year, Hans Hartung was awarded the Grand Prix des Beaux-Arts of the City of Paris. He exhibited at the Osaka Museum of Fine Arts. In 1971, Hans Hartung participated in the exhibition Hommage à Christian et Yvonne Zervos, at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris.

Several events and publications were organized to celebrate Hans Hartung’s 70^th birthday in 1974: the exhibition Hartung 1971-1974 at the Galerie de France; the retrospective at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum of Cologne. A special issue of the magazine Cimaise devoted entirely to the artist was published. The following year, a retrospective was shown at the Berlin Nationalgalerie and at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbach-Haus of Munich.
In 1977, the Metropolitan Museum of New York exhibited 27 recent monumental works in three rooms. Hans Hartung was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Paris.

A solo exhibition of Hans Hartung’s Pre-War works opened at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris in 1980. A year after the death of the painter Oscar Kokoschka in 1981, the Austrian government decided to create the Kokoschka prize and Hartung was the first person to whom it was awarded. The same year, several retrospectives were held: at the Städtische Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf and the Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst in Munich as well as at the Henie-Onstad Foundation in Norway.
In 1982, an entire room was permanently devoted to the works of Hans Hartung at the Munich Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst. Similarly, a Hartung room was installed permanently at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1984. In 1987, a solo exhibition of Hans Hartung’s art was shown at the Musée Picasso at Antibes, with the title Premières peintures 1922-1949.

Anna-Eva Bergman died that year. Hans Hartung died in Antibes two years later, in 1989. A large number of tributes were organized afterwards. The Fondation Hans Hartung et Anna-Eva Bergman was established in 1994 in their former home and studio at Antibes.

© Diane de Polignac Gallery
Translation: Jane Mac Avock

Fondation Hans Hartung & Anna-Eva Bergman