[...] his sign was “huddled on the pictorial page, concentrated and nude, bare of calligraphic seductions and boundless existential anxieties.”

Hans Hartung was one of the main figures involved in Art Informel and its related research into signs. Of German origin, he moved to Paris after Adolf Hitler came to power. He developed his own unique abstract sign during the 1930s, although it was misunderstood and unknown until after World War II. This sign derived its strength from the expressionistic graphics of Die Brücke, with which the artist came into contact during his training in Dresden. Contrary to critical readings that contributed to the problematic reception of his work, Hartung’s sign was well constructed and carefully thought-out, far removed from the action dimension sometimes cited by French critics when theorising about his influence over the American artists of Abstract Expressionism.¹ Instead, his sign was “huddled on the pictorial page, concentrated and nude, bare of calligraphic seductions and boundless existential anxieties.”² 

From 1935 onwards, upon the suggestion of his friend Jean Hélion, Hartung developed a technique for transferring his work from paper to canvas, so that, due to his limited funds, only the best results tried out on paper were reproduced on costly canvas.³ This process became commonplace after World War II, continuing until 1960. His physical condition (Hartung had lost a leg in the war when fighting the Nazis in the Foreign Legion in North Africa) was another reason why his canvases were carefully thought-out and well-constructed enlargements of the signs traced with ink and pastels on paper. During the transfer from one support to another, Hartung used oils to recreate the layering and porous effects of pastel, scratching, cutting into and engraving the paint. 

From 1948 onwards, Hartung produced numerous pastels designed to be transferred to canvas. It was therefore only on paper that he experimented with a rapid sign, managing the space in a skilful balance of lines, shapes and light. From that date, Hartung also developed a serial working method, producing numerous sketches on paper of the same format that were variants on the same sign-based syntax repeated in various different ways.⁴ This work on paper, which was already present in the collection in 1993 as attested by the handwritten inventory of that year, probably forms part of a series produced between 1949 and 1950, which has not yet been documented in any depth by the artist’s foundation. 

Hartung’s sign regained its significance on the new socio-political scene of the post-war period. It became the symbol of a universal individual freedom, entering into dialogue with sign-based research in Paris, variously labelled as abstraction lyrique, tachisme and informel, while always retaining its own autonomy from them and from Abstract Expressionism. 

Lara Conte

¹ See Laude 1982, p. 23; F. D’Amico, “Hans Hartung: l’aporia e l’assoluto”, in Turin 2000b, pp. 15-16, 18.

² D’Amico, “Hans Hartung: l’aporia e l’assoluto” cit., p. 15.

³ Claustres 2005, p. 10.

⁴ Ibid., p. 60.