AFA Winter 2019

Antiques & Fine Art 83 2019 Hans Hofmann (1880–1966), Morning Mist, 1958. Oil on canvas, 55⅛ x 40⅜ inches. UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives; Bequest of the artist (1966.45). With permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. In 1957, Hofmann closed his schools and turned full-time to his painting practice for the first time in more than forty years. In this last decade of his life, he produced an astounding and prodigious body of majestic paintings. His works of the late 1950s, such as Morning Mist , in title and expression, largely referred to conditions in the natural world. However, rather than pictorial reflections, Hofmann’s late large-scale abstractions evoked sensations intrinsic to nature, achieving his lifelong artistic goal to translate the visual and spiritual essences of the forces of nature.