187 - Carl Hofer

Carl Hofer 1878 Karlsruhe – 1955 Berlin – "Ticino Landscape (Ruined Hut)" – (1937) Oil on canvas. 50.5 x 68.5 cm. 64.5 x 82 cm (dimensions including frame). Monogrammed and dated lower right: CH (19)37. Framed. Minimal dent upper right—Lit.: Wohlert II, 1336. An abandoned stone hut with a red-tiled roof, next to it the remains of a wall overgrown with vegetation. Behind it, a purple mountain ridge rises in the summer haze. Carl Hofer (1878–1955) is considered one of the most important German painters of classical modernism. After studying in Karlsruhe, he lived in Rome and Paris, where he was influenced by Cézanne and French Modernism. Beginning in the 1920s, he traveled regularly to Ticino, whose landscape inspired him to create numerous paintings. Beginning in 1920, he taught as a professor in Berlin until the Nazis dismissed him in 1934. This painting was created in 1937, the year his works were removed from German museums as “degenerate.” The dilapidated hut thus becomes a quiet symbol of transience. After the war, Hofer became director of the Berlin University of the Arts. His work, free from any artistic “isms,” combines clear form with a quiet, often melancholic underlying mood.