Hartung

Hans Hartung, a German-born painter and photographer, is one of the most significant figures in 20th-century abstract art.

Rejecting the academicism of Parisian schools, Hartung preferred modern galleries. However, he did not exclude classical works and frequently visited the Louvre to immerse himself in the Old Masters. Naturalized French in 1946, he held his first solo exhibition in 1947, marking the beginning of his recognition as a leading figure in Art Informel and a precursor to Action Painting. In the 1960s, Hartung experimented with industrial paints and created innovative textures by scraping the fresh material directly from his canvases.

The motif is no longer centered or confined within the painting's frame, but unfolds across the pictorial field, suggesting a captivating off-canvas space. In 1973, Hartung had his own house built in Antibes, which today houses the Hartung Bergman Foundation, a space dedicated to his work and that of his wife, the painter Anna-Eva Bergman.

In 1975, he participated in the traveling exhibition "Thirty Creators alongside Pierre Alechinsky, Olivier Debré, and Pierre Soulages." In 1996, the Tate Gallery in London dedicated a major exhibition to his works on paper. In 2019, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris presented the retrospective "Hartung, the Factory of Gesture."

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