?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
HANS HOFMANN Composition in Blue.
Color screenprint on illustration board, 1952. 433x360 mm; 17 1/8x14 1/4 inches, wide (full ?) margins. Signed and numbered 31/120 in ink, lower margin. Published by Esther Gentle, New York, with the ink stamps lower right recto. A very good impression of this scarce, early print with strong colors.
According to Williams, Hofman was "pursuaded to make this print by Esther Gentle (later Mrs. Abraham Rattner), his student at the time, who was starting to publish screenprints reproducing well-known artists' paintings," (Reba and Dave Williams, American Screenprints, New York, 1987, p. 32). Though unlike other screenprints by Abstract Expressionist artists, Hofmann's is an original work which does not reproduce a painting. "An unusual feature of Composition in Blue is that the blue background varies; the artist authorized different color mixtures and strengths for the printing of this particular screen," (Williams, p. 32).
