1960-66 / Lucidus Ordo

"Hofmann reached another career milestone in 1963 when the Museum of Modern Art organized a major retrospective. Curator William Seitz wrote in the introduction to the catalogue:

Hans Hofmann, now working at a peak of production few younger artists could sustain, is one of our major masters. He is a symbol of both the international origins of American painting and its subsequent world influence. It is a sign of greatness, in the career of an artist, when his personal development cannot be separated from that of his epoch: such is the case with Hofmann. He is both a synthesist, who in his work and theory has concentrated the tradition of which he is a part, and a radical innovator who has given impetus to three generations of artists.

That same year Hofmann made an extraordinary gift to the University of California, Berkeley, in recognition of the University’s decisive role in his “start in America as a teacher and artist.” He donated forty-seven paintings from throughout his career, plus a substantial cash gift in support of the burgeoning University Art Museum (now the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), which opened its first purpose-built building in 1970. Hofmann had previously donated Summer Bliss (1960; pl. 49), a painting he described at the time as one of his best, in honor of Worth Ryder, the man who had first brought him to the United States and Berkeley in 1930 and who had recently passed away. This gift set in motion what would become a singular collection and enduring legacy. Working closely with UC Berkeley art faculty member Erle Loran, who, like Ryder, had been a student in Europe, Hofmann selected significant early works as well as the strongest examples of his later practice. Although Hofmann died before the entire group was finalized, the BAMPFA Hofmann collection, recognized as the world’s most extensive museum collection of his work, embodies the artist’s desire for it to be both excellent and comprehensive.""