Hans Hartung

HANS HARTUNG (Germany, 1904 - France, 1989).
"GM 18 1978-20", 1988.
Etching, copy 30/75.
Dry stamp of the publisher Il Cigno GG, Rome.
Printed by Lacouriere et Frelaut, Paris.
Enclosed certifies that it was printed by the Il Cigno Printing House, Rome.
Measurements: 34.5 x 24.5 cm (print); 49 x 35 cm (paper).

Hans Hartung grew up in a family of artists, which led to his interest in art at an early age. He studied at the Academies of Dresden and Munich, where he had contact with masters of the stature of Nolde, and where he began an early stage close to the aesthetic guidelines of cubism. In 1926 he left his country, with the intention of leaving behind the pictorial localisms and opening up to other schools, which is why he decided to make a trip to Italy to finally settle in Paris. He made his individual debut in Dresden in 1931, but soon after he would be rejected by Nazi Germany for being considered a "degenerate" artist, in fact, in 1935 he was about to be arrested for trying to sell his work in Germany. During World War II, he became a member of the French legion, followed by the Gestapo, was arrested and locked in a red room with the intention of damaging his vision. From 1947 onwards, his fame in the French art scene grew. That same year he exhibited for the first time in Paris, and in 1960 he received the Grand International Prize at the Venice Biennale. He is currently represented at the MoMA in New York, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, the Tate Gallery in London and the Haifa Museum in Israel, among many other centers, institutions and collections around the world.