OTTO HOFMANN (Essen 1907 - 1996 Pompeiana), House by a Lake, 1933

OTTO HOFMANN*
(Essen 1907 - 1996 Pompeiana)
House by a Lake, 1933
oil/canvas, 46,8 x 61 cm
monogrammed OH and dated 33
depicted in Expressiver Realismus in Deutschland, Vienna 2017, p. 47
Provenance: private property France, Fine Arts Widder

ESTIMATE € 5.000 - 8.000
START € 5.000

German painter, graphic artist, porcelain painter, designer and university teacher of the 20th century. Counts among the younger generation of Bauhaus artists. Grew up in Jena, first studied architecture at the Technical University in Stuttgart. After acquaintance with the director of the Jena Kunstverein, Walter Dexel, began training at the Bauhaus in Dessau with Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Acquaintance with Josef Albers, Oskar Schlemmer and Kurt Schwitters. 1931 Return to Jena, exhibitions in Erfurt and Jena. 1933 Trip to Switzerland and contact with Zurich Dadaism. Trip to Paris and acquaintance with Fernand Léger, Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti. From 1935 in Berlin, in 1937 his works were classified by the Nazis as degenerate art. Lived and worked after the war in Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Munich and from 1976 in Liguria. Created mainly landscapes and cityscapes. In early works such as in the house on the lake still representational and landscape references, in later works increasingly a free interplay of lines, colors and shapes to complete dissolution of the motif. Clear compositions show an interest in spatial effects, tranquility, movement and balance. In addition to influences from Constructivism and Cubism, also impulses from Surrealism, Dadaism and Pittura Metafisica.

Hofmann studied from 1928 to 1930 at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1930, the Bauhaus organized a single exhibition for his works, and Hofmann was invited by the Jenaer Kunstverein for the exhibition "Young Artists from the Bauhaus Dessau". During the Nazi regime, his works were considered degenerate and Hofmann, who was a member of the communist party KPD, fled first to Switzerland and then to Paris. In 1934 he worked for Paul Klee in Bern, but then went back to Germany for family reasons and was drafted in 1939. His work was not appreciated in the GDR, he moved to West Berlin in 1950 and received the Berlin Art Prize in 1953. He then lived as an artist in Paris until 1965 and returned to Berlin from 1966 to 1975 as a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts. He spent the rest of his life in Pompeiana, Italy. Retrospectives: As part of the exhibition "La poetica del Bauhaus" in the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa. "Otto Hofmann on his 100th birthday, Jena Municipal Museums, Jena Art Collection, 2007

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