Walls of Color: Murals by Hans Hofmann

Hardcover Book by Kenneth E. Silver, and Mary McLeod

The art of Hans Hofmann, a towering figure among postwar New York School painters, is the subject of the exhibition Walls of Color: The Murals of Hans Hofmann. Famous for his push/pull spatial theories and dynamic approach to color, Hofmann was not only a revered painter, but also the most important teacher and theoretician of the Abstract Expressionist movement. The complex structures of Hofmann’s abstract canvases explode with vivid hues, each work a distinct expression of his highly evolved “Search for the Real,” the title of his influential books of essays of 1948.

Walls of Color is the first exhibition to focus on Hans Hofmann’s vibrant and varied, yet underappreciated, public mosaic projects through his paintings, mosaic studies, and drawings. Incorporating a number of the finest examples of the artist’s contemporaneous easel paintings, in addition to key paintings leading up to and following his mural work, the exhibition demonstrates the continuity and evolution of Hofmann’s oeuvre.

Read the New York Times review of the Bruce Museum’s presentation of Walls of Color.