The German painter Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) approached abstract painting through Cubism and Fauvism. His teaching and painting were singularly influential for the development of American painting after 1945.

Born in Weissenburg, Germany, Hans Hofmann studied music and science before enrolling in 1898 at Moritz Heymann's Munich art school. Hofmann's early work was influenced by Wilhelm Leibl's impressionism and by French neoimpressionism. His pencil studies at this time also suggest an unusual preoccupation with the relationship of figures to their ground planes.

From 1904 to 1914 Hofmann, sponsored by a Berlin art collector, studied in Paris. He met many Cubist and Fauve artists and was drawn particularly to Robert Delaunay's abstractions. When World War I began, Hofmann's patronage ended, and he returned to Munich.

Teaching in Munich

Because of a lung ailment, Hofmann was not drafted. He opened an art school in Munich in 1915, and for the next 15 years he articulated a philosophy...