Hans Hartung: Paintings, 1971–1975

Hans Hartung is a painter of international importance whose work is as yet insufficiently known and appreciated outside Western Europe. There is, for instance, an American art public familiar with a few paintings from a short period in the 1950s, the paintings of "long grasses." These are elegant and splendid, an inspired moment, but hardly the whole man. Art is not necessarily exportable. In the twentieth century we can point to many national heroes whose work falls upon deaf ears or blind eyes beyond their respective borders. In some cases the work is simply not good enough to command wider attention. In others it must become familiar over long enough a period to wear down local prejudice before it is given its due. Hans Hartung's work has the intelligence, force, and wit to leap beyond local boundaries. Hartung made the transition from Germany to France via Spain, and he became one of the most highly valued members of the School of Paris, a difficult fraternity, named after a city, but as truly international as any artistic designation of our time. It is high time that his life's work, especially the art of his recent years, be esteemed internationally at its true value.