Hans Hartung - Original Signed Drawing

Hans HARTUNG (1904 - 1989), French painter of German origin
Untitled, 1967
Drawing in colored pencils on paper made for a presentation of his works at the Galerie de France. Dedicated, dated (15-12-67) and signed lower left. Dimensions: 31.8 x 31.8 cm. Hans Hartung turned towards abstraction very early on when he fled Nazi Germany to settle in Paris. In the 1930s, he perfected his method, which he described as “calculated spontaneity”. But it takes time to be recognized. He enlisted in the Foreign Legion during the war and lost one leg. Back in Paris, he participated in his first exhibitions, at the Venice Biennale, a film was dedicated to him. A major stylistic change took place in 1960, when he discovered industrial paints which allowed him to skip the stage of preparatory drawing before coloring, to spontaneously attack the canvas with acrylics and vinyls, which he scratched in zebra shapes on large format. Fame arrives, Hartung is in great demand, he exhibits in Europe and the United States. It was from the beginning of the 1950s that it was taken to the Galerie de France. Created in 1942 by Paul Martin, it only took off in 1951, taken over by the tandem Myriam Prévot and Gildo Caputo. During the 50s and 60s, it was one of the most influential Parisian galleries, spearheading the lyrical abstraction and non-figuration movements. The publisher and gallery owner Jean-Robert Arnaud writes: “The Galerie de France was then a real institution, it dominated international artistic life and had become the obligatory exhibition venue for any artist from around the world who sought the consecration of Paris , for some time to come the world capital of art. Major international prizes for its artists, museum exhibitions in all directions (the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris had become a real branch of the gallery), waiting lists for collectors. Among the illustrious names exhibited at the gallery we can cite: Pierre Soulages, Pierre Alechinsky, Victor Brauner, Serge Poliakoff, Gustave Singer, Zao-Wou-Ki, Mario Prassinos. After the suicide of Myriam Prévot, the gallery closed in 1981.