Hans Hofmann, Sic Itur Ad Astra (Such is the Way to the Stars), 1962, oil on canvas, 60 1/8 x 72 1/8 inches (152.7 x 183.2 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston, TX, (95-08), gift of Mrs. Louisa Stude Sarofim. Photo: George Hixson, Houston. © 2011 The Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Award-winning Finalist,
Best Interior Design category,
International Book Awards, 2011
Design: John Hubbard / Eson
Color by IOcolor
Printed in China
424 pages, 9 x 11
40 color, 148 b/w illustrations
ISBN 978-0-9866511-0-6
Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann brings together the man, the schools, the painting, the ideas, and the teaching. Jed Perl of The New Republic calls this book "enormously important... nothing less than the missing chapter in the history of the period," for Hofmann's decade of painting in Paris prior to World War I, combined with his observations of the masters of all cultures, enabled him to explain Cubism to the avant-garde and catalyzed the later Abstract Expressionism.
In the ateliers of German emigrant Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) in Munich, New York, and Provincetown, talented students later to become some of the most significant artists and educators of the time rubbed shoulders with critics, collectors, and curators, who in turn transmitted and transmuted Hofmann's ideas across Europe, America, Canada, and beyond.
From how Hofmann taught to what he taught, artists talk shop about the inner workings of the visual language, a discussion essential to the contemporary dialogue in the arts and required reading for those engaged in creative composition, whether visual, verbal, musical, architectural, cinematic, or choreographic.
Tina Dickey, artist and author, studied painting with former Hofmann students prior to conducting an oral history now in the Archives of American Art, and exhibited with them at Copenhagen City Gallery in 1993 (USA on Paper). During her nine years as Editor of the Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné (1997-2006), she was chief research consultant for the PBS documentary Hans Hofmann: Artist/Teacher, Teacher/Artist (2002), while editing the journals of painter Myron Stout (Midmarch Arts Press, 2005). She has contributed to numerous books and exhibition catalogs related to Hofmann and his former students in the United States, Canada, Spain, and Germany.