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Wolf Hoffmann
Ornamental Composition

About the Item

“I have been living in Berlin as a painter for 45 years and since then a lot of water has flowed down the Spree, many ‘big’ and little names, many art scenes, a lot of noise and lots of hope have come along. There was the great period of 1920-1933, when Berlin was a real and free art city, when the public still visited the exhibitions and the painters had not yet invented the publicity. There was the ’12th Reich’, which eliminated art. And there came the laborious new beginnings after 1945. When I was a beginner, around 1925, I plunged rather carelessly into the lively art scene: first exhibition in the then very turbulent jury-free show. In 1927, for the first time, I succeeded in conquering a wall space in the academy on Pariser Platz, where Liebermann led a strict regiment. Many young exhibitions were organized and critically acclaimed (Paul Westheim). Paul Cassirer showed three generations in two beautiful exhibitions, I was one of the youngest. My first collective exhibition was in the Galerie Möller in 1928, after which I received a master studio in the ‘Akademie der Künste’ for three years. In the printing workshop on the Steinplatz I learned the etchings on the same press, on which I still create the plates at our university today. This was followed by further exhibitions, again at Möller in 1931, etchings in the gallery Gurlitt in 1932, in the Szczecin Museum, whose director Riezler acquired several pictures that were destroyed during the Nazi era. The Kronprinzenpalais had also bought a picture and the Kupferstichkabinett some etchings. Everything went ahead, and then, with one hit, it was over. In 1934, all free, progressive exhibitions were closed and the associations liquidated (Künstlerbund, Sezession). The end of painting. I learned ceramics and painted tiles and tiled stoves; The war also ended this escape, since I had to be a soldier for four years. After the battle for Berlin, I crawled out of the rubble and saw the studio house in the Kurfürstenstraße along with the pictures, plates and everything burned down. The life went on. The first art exhibition that Berlin organized in 1945 was a sign of recollection. The gallery Schüler, at that time in a Zehlendorfer garden villa, showed 1948 my first post-war pictures. 1949 Foundation of the ‘Neue Gruppe’. I started to etch again. Since 1950 I have been the head of the restored workshop for etching at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin and since 1951 a class for free graphics. Later, as a supplement, I introduced screen printing. Since then it continues; Berlin has changed, different is also the art. Works are being produced in bigger numbers than ever, optimistic and alive. ” Wolf Hoffmann in: Gallery Gerda Bassenge, Wolf Hoffmann. Ölbilder, Farbradierungen, Aquarelle 1962/63, exh. Cat., Berlin 1964.
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