Oil crayon
Signed and dated lower right. Titled on verso by a hand other than that of the artist, as well as inscribed with the artist's name and with an indication on direction and measures. On coated white cardboard. 50 x 73 cm (19,6 x 28,7 in), size of sheet

PROVENANCE: Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth, Zurich (with label on verso).
Private collection North-Rhine Westphalia.
Private collection southern Germany.

In his unmistakable informal compositions Hartung often varies the tense relation between color surface and line and probes it for new possibilities. Even though the impression may occur that the composition first and foremost arises from a spontaneous concept of improvised and levitating lines and soft surfaces, the deliberate and well-considered usage of the artistic means plays an important role in Hartung’s works. A number of sketches is necessary to get to the final fully developed result. Hartung describes the process as follows: “A long, very long, time of considerations absolutely necessary. You have to let the draft mature, have to get the most out of it, to then carry it to extremes and to constrain to the substance. In doing so you have to make sure to preserve a notion of freshness and spontaneity, just what improvisation is all about. In order to fulfill all these requirements it needs a long and toiling process. But you just shouldn‘t show that.“ " (translation of quote from Hartung, in: Hans Hartung, ex. cat. of the Galerie Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1981, p. 4). [EH].