4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.

Into Outer Space

Artist Hans Hofmann (American (born Germany), 1880 - 1966)

Date1957

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsOverall: 69 1/2 x 47 3/4 in. (176.5 x 121.3 cm)

ClassificationsModern art

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.660

Terms

Space
Multi
Red
Green
Yellow
Black
Blue
Abstract
Expressionist
New York

Collections

Modern and Contemporary

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an oil on panel painting. Vertically oriented, it is divided from top left to bottom right by a wide red diagonal of paint. The right side of the canvas is primarily yellow. The left is mostly sage green. On the yellow side there are two orange rectangles. On the sage green side there is a light blue rectangle and a cream white rectangle. There are large dabs of intense blue paint near the lower edge of the painting.

Label TextHans Hofmann American, b. Germany, 1880–1966 Into Outer Space, 1957 Oil on board Like a rocket at liftoff, a red-hot cluster of diagonals cuts across this painting. Its raw, bold colors give the painting an explosive visual force. The nervous energy of the 1957 work and its space-age title may allude to the space race then unfolding between the United States and the Soviet Union, which launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, that same year. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.660