Hans Hartung

Hans Hartung P1960-203 1960 Pastel and charcoal on cardboard 72 x 48.5 cm. Framed under glass. Signed and dated 'Hartung 60'. Inscribed on the reverse "P1960-203" and with directional arrow and indication. - With slight signs of age. The present work is registered in the Foundation Hartung Bergman, Antibes, and will be included in the catalog raisonné of the Foundation Hartung Bergman, Antibes, which is in preparation. Provenance Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia Exhibitions Paris 1960 (Galerie de France), Hans Hartung, exhibition cat., o.p. with ill. In the 1950s and 1960s Hans Hartung is considered one of the most important representatives of the international Informel. Born in Leipzig in 1904 and trained at the art academy there and in Dresden, he moved to France in 1935 and lived in Paris at the center of the artistic avant-garde of the time. After the war, he quickly became the celebrated protagonist of the "École de Paris," whose informal visual language he helped to develop and whose success at times outshone the work of the universal artist Picasso. Hartung's decisive contribution to this are the lines he applies to the canvas or paper with brushes or pencils, but also with brushwood brooms, rakes and palm fronds. Hartung's work becomes truly bold and avant-garde from 1960, when he receives an award at the Venice Biennale and creates the offered pastel and chalk drawing "P 1960-203". On a large format, he sets brown, black, blue and green-yellow bundles of lines floating on a light background. While the color scheme exudes a fresh, calm effect, the strokes convey dynamism and youthful vigor - especially the lines that are scratched back into the materiality, once again energizing the composition.