Hans Hartung is one of the most important protagonists of abstract art. Since the 1950s Hartung became one of the most influential figures of the Ècole de Paris and the most influential "German" artist. Gestural painting and Golden Ratio, Tachism and composition, free development and calculated action; all these seemingly diametric terms match the artist’s creative process. Characteristic of Hartung's work is especially his fast brushstroke and his almost graphic black lines in front of bright and metallic shining backgrounds. Hans Hartung created his first abstract drawings already in the 1920s. Amidst the avant-garde in France in the 1930s, he developed completely new forms of gestural painting. After the traumas of past wars, abstraction in a very fruitful manner became the language for a new beginning. In the 1950s Hartung became one of the most important representatives of the Ècole de Paris and, parallel to the greats of American Abstract Expressionism, one of the most influential artists of abstract painting for following generations. Hartung’s work took on a more sculptural quality in the 1960s as he began to scratch lines directly into color. He continued his work until the late 1980s in an increasingly experimental approach.
