Details

This work is registered in the archive of the Fondation Hartung-Bergman, Antibes, and will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of works by Hans Hartung.

Provenance:

Polígrafa Obra Gràfica, Barcelona;

Galeria René Metras, Barcelona, stamped on the reverse; private collection, Italy.

Descrizione

– Particularly clearly structured work from the important 1960s

– Concise reduction of colour to black and white

– Hartung is a German-French artist and one of the most important representatives of international Art Informel

“A simple line – fierce, effervescent, bristling, bursting or calmly regular, even – translates what we feel. It corresponds with our life” Hans Hartung

It all starts with a thunderstorm. The Hartung family gathers in the hallway of their Leipzig flat, far away from the windows. “I must have been about eight years old at the time,” says Hans Hartung. The little boy couldn’t stand it in the hallway, ran to the window, tore open the curtains and marvelled at the lightning bolts etching jagged points into the black sky. Reflexively, he opens an exercise book, takes a pencil and draws. “That way I banished the lightning, nothing could happen to me if my stroke followed the speed of the lightning.”

Hartung became a master of the stroke, the quick line. He was one of the pioneers and most important representatives of the European Art Informel movement and the Nouvelle École de Paris. He paints, draws, lithographs and works on canvas with aerosol sprays, styluses and scratches. His surfaces consist of canvas, paper or baryta board, a bright white paper with a high-gloss coating.

Hartung often uses this mineralised ground because the surface sheen enhances the contrasts and the intensity of the colour, in this case black. Hartung applies the black acrylic paint to the prepared ground with various brushes in fine strokes. In this work from 1967, the lines and overlays of different widths create a dynamic composition. The varying density of the colour application creates a balanced tension and depth effect within the picture.

Design for a tapestry for the Manufacture de Beauvais.