devote himself fully to his art. Though a generation older than Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorki, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning, Hofmann took his place as a major and influential member of this thoroughly American art movement.

In 1960, Hofmann was one of four artists representing the United States at the Venice Biennale, and three years later a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art traveled throughout the United States and internationally to South America and Europe. Lowery Sims, who curated Hofmann’s 1999 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum, says of the artist’s late bloom, “Hans Hofmann came into his own in the 1950s and 60s when he’s in his seventies and eighties… It sort of defies the notion that creativity is only the province of the young. He’s a really great example for people to understand that creativity is a lifelong promise.”

Three years later, Miz Hofmann died (continued)