Hans Hofmann – Chimbote – Farben für die Neue Stadt

As an exponent of Abstract Expressionism, the dominant tendency in American painting in the 1950s, Hans Hofmann (b. Weißenburg, Germany, 1880; d. New York, USA, 1966) ranks among the preeminent artists of the twentieth century. As a teacher at his Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts, which he founded in 1933 after emigrating to the United States, he exerted a formative influence over a generation of young painters. With Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and others, he was a member of the illustrious New York School, a loose association of visual artists.

In 1950 - Hofmann was spending time in Europe - he collaborated with the architects Josep Lluís Sert and Paul Lester Wiener on designs for colourful wall paintings to be executed on buildings in Chimbote, Peru. The urban masterplan they developed for the city’s post-World War II expansion was never realized, and so Hofmann’s intensely colourful works in large formats have been known only to specialists. The selection gathered in this book together with drawings and a city plan provides focused insight into a visionary project.