The Golden Wall

Contemporary Art

1961

Hans Hofmann
American, born Germany, 1880-1966

After studying in Paris among early Fauve and Cubist artists, and having an influential teaching career in Germany and the United States, Hans Hofmann began to devote himself exclusively to his own painting in 1958. Frustrated by the limits of linear perspective, he introduced his “push-and-pull” theory in order to create a more dynamic sense of space in his paintings, in which forms and colors appear to simultaneously advance and recede. In The Golden Wall, rectangles of varying sizes and colors direct the gaze across the picture. Some forms appear to float above the expressive brushstrokes that punctuate the work, while others are embedded in the background, providing the canvas with a lively sense of movement and dimension.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Contemporary Art

Artist: Hans Hofmann
Title: The Golden Wall
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1961
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Titled and signed on verso; upper right in black pen: “the golden wall, oil on canvas, 1961, Hans Hofmann”
Dimensions: Unframed: 152.4 × 183.5 cm (60 × 72 1/4 in.); 152.4 × 183.6 cm (60 × 72 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize Fund
Reference Number: 1962.775

Hans Hofmann, Hans Hofmann: With An Introduction by Sam Hunter and Five Essays by Hans Hofmann, (Harry N. Abrams, 1964), color pl. 156.
Cynthia Goodman, Hans Hofmann, Modern Masters 10, (Abbeville Press, 1986), p. 95, pl. 8.
William C. Agee, Kenneth Noland: The Circle Paintings 1956-63, exh. cat. (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1993), p. 26, fig. 17.
Jonathan Fineberg, Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being, 2nd ed., (Harry N. Abrams, 2000), p. 57, color ill. 3.20.
Art Institute of Chicago, Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Art Institute of Chicago/Hudson Hills Press, 1996), color ill.
James Yohe, ed, Hans Hofmann (Rizzoli, 2002), color ill.

Art Institute of Chicago, 66th Annual American Exhibition: Directions in Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, January 11–February 10, 1963, cat. 33.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Hans Hofmann, September 11–November 28, 1963, cat. 26, ill.
Washington, D.C., Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Hans Hofmann: A Retrospective Exhibition, October 14, 1976–January 2, 1977, cat. 53, ill.; traveled to Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, February 4–April 3, 1977.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Hans Hofmann, June 20–September 16, 1990, p. 86, color pl. 73; traveled to Miami, Center for the Fine Arts, November, 1990–January, 1991, and Norfolk, Virginia, The Chrysler Museum, February–April, 1991.

Sold Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute, 1962.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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