1960-66 / Lucidus Ordo (Part 3 of 3)

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Audio Transcripition:
Color in itself is Light. In nature, light creates the color; in the picture, color creates light. Every color shade emanates a very characteristic light—no substitute is possible.
— Hans Hofmann, 1955

Nocturnal Splendor

1963
Oil on canvas
72 1⁄4 x 60 1⁄8 in. (183.5 x 152.7 cm)
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Gift of the artist, 1964
1964.2

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The Castle

1965
Oil on canvas
60 1⁄8 x 40 1⁄8 in. (152.7 x 101.9 cm)
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Gift of the artist, 1966
1966.4

Art critic Bill Berkson said of Hofmann’s late work: “It was astounding to see how many ideas and techniques of painting Hofmann commanded. In the last decade . . . his work seemed like that of a ‘natural,’ a learned young painter who, finding his self-control, discovers that painting is infinitely available to him. He had a faith in painting as the ideal activity for reasonable men. In a sense, his rectangular slabs of paint, which punctuate surfaces otherwise in flux, are the emblems of that faith—but then so are the slightest squiggles squeezed just so from the tube.”

Citation

Berkson, William, “Hans Hofmann,” Art Magazine, April 1966, 56. 75 Hans Hofmann, “The Painter and His Problems: A Manual Dedicated to Painting,” unpublished manuscript, dated March 21, 1963.