Artist: Hans Hartung (1904 Leipzig - 1989 Antibes/France)

Artwork: Original Color Lithograph, "Black Brushstrokes on a Turquoise Background" (1964)

Dimensions: Approximately 31 x 23.5 cm (in passe-partout), framed (approximately 50 x 40 cm)

Description: This color lithograph by Hans Hartung features black brushstrokes on a turquoise background. Hartung was a renowned French-German artist associated with the Art Informel movement. His artworks are known for their lyrical abstractions, characterized by distinctive swirls, scribbles, and hatch marks, often created through unique techniques such as scratching, erasing, and reapplying pigment. He believed in the importance of artistic freedom and rejected rigid formal constraints.

About the Artist: Hans Hartung's artistic journey began with studies in philosophy and art history at Leipzig University, followed by art education at academies in Dresden, Leipzig, and Munich. In the late 1920s, he moved to Paris, where he joined the French Foreign Legion and later faced imprisonment by the Gestapo during World War II, partly due to his unconventional painting style. After the war, he became associated with artists like Jean Fautrier and Pierre Soulages, who embraced spontaneous and gestural artistic expressions. Hartung's work had a significant influence on American abstract painters in the early 1960s, including Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Francis. He passed away on December 7, 1989, in Antibes, France. Today, his artworks are held in prestigious collections worldwide, including the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.