Hans Hartung

Biography of Hans Hartung

Hans HARTUNG was born on September 21, 1904, in Leipzig (Germany), into a wealthy and cultured family (his father and grandfather were doctors).

Showing a keen interest in painting from an early age, particularly through German expressionism, he began creating series of abstract charcoal drawings in the early 1920s.
While pursuing studies in philosophy and art history between Leipzig and Dresden, he discovered French painting, especially Cubism.

By 1926, Hartung had settled in France while regularly traveling throughout Europe. He met a young Norwegian artist, Anna-Eva Bergman, whom he married in 1929. The young couple faced multiple financial problems, exacerbated by Hartung's refusal to return to Germany following Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

In Paris, he befriended Henri Goetz, met Kandinsky, Mondrian, Miro, and Calder, painted the series of "inkblots," and tried to ease his anxieties. Anna-Eva, ill, was forced to return to Norway (she stopped painting for nearly 10 years) and the couple divorced.

Hartung, whose passport had been confiscated by the German Embassy, found refuge with Goetz and continued his work in the studio of the sculptor Julio Gonzalez, whose daughter, Roberta, he married the following year.

Continuing to fight against Nazism, he joined the Foreign Legion in December 1939, served in Indochina before being demobilized, and left France (occupied) for Spain where he was captured and spent seven months in a concentration camp. Fleeing to North Africa, he re-enlisted in the Legion. In 1944, during the attack on Belfort, he was severely wounded and had to have his right leg amputated.

After the war, he returned to Paris where he was naturalized and decorated (Croix de Guerre, Médaille militaire, and Légion d'Honneur). The time had come for the artist's recognition...

His paintings were exhibited everywhere, and critics were enthusiastic about this major artist of the abstract renewal. Alongside Soulages, Mathieu, and Rothko, he developed the informal and gestural language that marked the 1950s.

Finally cured, Anna-Eva Bergman returned to Paris, and Hans Hartung divorced Roberta Gonzalez to remarry the woman who remained his wife. The following years were those of worldwide recognition of his talent and work. Numerous exhibitions celebrated his works and allowed all of Europe to discover his black strokes.

Engravings and lithographs enriched his modes of expression, and the "scratching" process allowed him to renew his inspirations from 1961 onwards.

Hans and Anna-Eva settled in Antibes from 1968, in a house he designed and conceived.

In 1984, Hartung received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

He passed away in December 1989, two years after Anna-Eva. A foundation dedicated to them is now housed in what was their home in Antibes.

© Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES