Hans Hartung “T 1962-E-15” at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Painting - Vinyl on Canvas (50.8 x 129.5 cm) 1962

Hans Hartung was born in Leipzig in 1904.

Hans Hartung, T 1962-E-15 A person with an inquiring mind, he was interested as much in astronomy as in philosophy, music and religion until he decided to become a painter.

His first inspirations were the works of Goya and Rembrandt, followed by Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka.

A precocious artist, he was attracted to abstraction from the age of 17.

The turning point of his career was 1926 when he discovered Georges Braque's works, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Juan Gris during the international exhibition in Dresden.

That same year he decided to settle in Paris.

Hans Hartung, T 1962-E-15 The Second World War was a great ordeal for Hans Hartung: being sent to the front, he got wounded and a leg amputated.

He was one of the Informal Art and Tachism's figures until then moving towards more dynamic forms.

His style was light strokes and tears on a dark background as in the painting exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, a work dating from 1962.

Both aggressive works with "sharp", or almost soft, strokes in which the same strokes and tears of colour are ethereal, like floating on the dark background.

Thus in this painting “T 1962-E15” one has the feeling that these traits are as many strands of floating grass and stems of soft reeds curved by the wind blowing from the left.

A wind that is pushing, pushing, until everything becomes symbols and shadows in the right part.

Hans Hartung, T 1962-E-15