Beschreibung:

HANS HOFMANN (1880-1966)Let There Be Light (And the Sun Beautiful as She Was and Pregnant – Scattered Her Colours All over the Earth) 1955-1961 signed; signed with the artist's initials, titled, dated 1955-1961 and variously inscribed on the reverse​oil on canvas,​ in an artist's frame 51 1/2 by 89 1/2 in. 130.8 by 227.3 cm. FootnotesProvenance Collection of the artist, New York (843-1956) Estate of the artist, New York (M-1045) Renate, Hans and Maria Hofmann Trust, New York Ameringer Howard Fine Art, New York (A/H #1616) Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2000 Exhibited New York, Kootz Gallery, Hans Hofmann New Paintings, 1957 Salt Lake City, University of Utah Department of Art, Nine American Painters: The Fourth Annual Invitational Exhibition of the University of Utah Department of Art, 1958 Nuremberg, Fränkische Galerie am Marientor, Hans Hofmann 1962-1963, n. 81 New York, André Emmerich Gallery, Large-Scale Master Paintings and Sculpture, 1984 London, The Tate Gallery, Hans Hofmann Late Paintings, 1988, p. 41, n. 16, illustrated in colour San Francisco, John Berggruen Gallery, Hans Hofmann Paintings 1937-1961, 1989 Santa Fe, Bellas Artes Gallery, Masterworks of Contemporary Sculpture, Painting and Drawing, the 1930s to the 1990s, 1991 Santa Fe, Riva Yares Gallery, Hans Hofmann Selected Paintings, 1997 New York, Ameringer Howard Fine Art, Hans Hofmann Late Paintings from the Hofmann Estate, 1999 Boca Raton, Ameringer Howard Fine Art, Hans Hofmann A Retrospective Exhibition, 1999 Literature James Yohe, Ed., Hans Hofmann New York 2002, p. 229, illustrated in colour Suzi Villiger, Ed., Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings; Volume III, Surrey 2014, p. 313, n. P1335, illustrated in colour 'A picture is in the same way a universe – it holds its own life and mirrors a mind and a soul. Within all these laws seem to be a directing will and we are also directed by this will – this will is the urge to create – it is a cosmic will that determines all creation' -Hans Hofmann 1956 In the art historical canon, there are but a small number of figures who can be said to have been truly influential – those who steered a generation of artists in their wake, not by happenstance but out of a generosity of spirit and an appreciation for the creative process as something to be expanded as a collective, collaboratively, who navigated global and social ills in pursuit of their cosmic calling. Hans Hofmann is such a figure. Many critics of his time struggled to reconcile his stature as a pedagogue alongside that of him as a pioneering aesthete, often fixating upon those artists who emerged from his school fully formed, moulded by his teachings. Yet his importance as a teacher and artist alike is hard to overstate. He was a man of vivid intellect whose own words about painting and his practice carry a poetic weight that foregrounds the intensity of his focus on not only the plastic concerns of painting, but the universality of his project, striving to seize upon a tender exchange between spectator and work of art. In the present work, the beautifully titled Let There Be Light (And the Sun Beautiful as She Was and Pregnant – Scattered Her Colours All over the Earth), Hofmann's career-defining pursuits come to fruition in a painting that embodies the meaning of masterpiece. Not only is it a work that the artist worked and re-worked for some six years before declaring it complete in 1961 – during which time he ceased teaching to focus fully on his own practice in 1958 – but it remained in his possession until his death until 1966, passing to his estate until 2000. It represents a late work of consummate mastery, a period that commentators consider the final and immortal passage of Hofmann's career that saw him achieve some of his most magnificent and principal painterly achievements. Let There Be Light comes to market from the collection of Melvin S. Rosenthal, the only custodian to have enjoyed the painting outs