Ohne Titel. 1952.
Pastel.
Signed and dated lower left. On light board by BFK Rives (with watermark). 49,5 x 65,3 cm (19,4 x 25,7 in), size of sheet.

The work is registered in the archive of the Fondation Hans Hartung et Anna-Eva Bergman.

Hans Hartung is one of the few German artists that have been making abstract art from the beginning on. A lecture by Wassily Kandinsky, which the Leipzig native attended during his studies, was a crucial experience. For some artists abstraction was at the end of a long path of finding a means of expression, to Hartung it is the basis for all his artistic creation. This artistic consequence would be his doom during the reign of the National Socialists, his great breakthrough began after the war, when his abstract works were met with great enthusiasm by the audience. It is the symbolist value of his works that made for his popularity. Additionally, his membership of the École de Paris, the center of the European avant-garde in the 1950s, also contributed to his fame. Hartung's imagery does not carry a psychological burden. They are an expression of a free and dynamic process of creation, enriching his works with their graphic-like gesture. [KD/DB]