Hans Hartung

HANS HARTUNG (Germany, 1904 - France, 1989)
"Exposition Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna", 1966, Torino.
Silkscreen.
Measurements: 99 × 63 cm.

Poster realized by Hans Hartung on the occasion of his exhibition at the Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna in Turin, in which the artist transfers with full coherence his pictorial language to the field of graphic work.

Gesture, an essential feature of Hartung's work, is manifested here through a combination of dense stains and rapid, almost violent lines that evoke the movement and immediacy of the creative process. The central area, marked by a dark shape of almost monumental character, acts as the visual axis of the composition, while the white incisions and chromatic hallmarks generate a dynamic rhythm that guides the viewer's gaze.

This silkscreen exemplifies Hartung's ability to turn the exhibition poster into an autonomous work, in which lyrical abstraction asserts itself as a universal language, detached from figurative representation. The piece is inscribed in a moment of full maturity of the artist, when his international recognition was fully consolidated and his gestural vocabulary reached a great formal synthesis.

Hans Hartung is a fundamental figure of post-war European abstraction and one of the leading representatives of lyrical abstraction. His work is part of the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, among other institutions. Throughout his career he developed a language based on the force of gesture, the energy of the stroke and the autonomy of the sign, which exerted a decisive influence on European informalism.