THIS SALE IS FOR A BOX OF 3 TAITTINGER FLUTES IN THE ORIGINAL BOX.
This is only the 6th edition of the Collection since 1983, with the German/French painter commissioned to produce a limited edition label for Taittinger’s Brut Millésimé 1986 [not included] the vintage was released in 1992. A limited edition of the flutes were also commissioned.
History of Hans Hartung
Hans Hartung (21 September 1904 – 7 December 1989) was a German-French
painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated
World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.
Hartung was born in Leipzig, Germany into an artistic family. He
developed an early appreciation of Rembrandt, German painters such as
Lovis Corinth, and the Expressionists Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. In
1924 he enrolled in Leipzig University, where he studied philosophy and
art history. He subsequently studied at the Fine Arts academy of
Dresden, where he copied the paintings of the masters. The modern French
and Spanish works he saw in 1926 at the Internationale Kunstausstellung
in Dresden were a revelation to him, and he decided that he would leave
his native country to prevent succumbing to provincialism.
Consequently, after a bicycle trip through Italy, he moved to Paris.
In Paris Hartung had little contact with other artists, and copied
the works of old and modern masters. He visited the south of France,
where the landscape inspired him to a close study of the works of
Cézanne, and he developed a great interest in principles of harmony and
proportion such as the golden section. In 1928 he visited Munich where
he studied painting technique with Max Doerner. In 1929 he married the
artist Anna-Eva Bergman and established himself in the French towns of
Leucate, and then in the Spanish Balearic Islands, eventually settling
in Minorca. He exhibited for the first time in 1931 in Dresden.
The death of his father in 1932 severed Hartung's last bonds with
Germany. He was rejected from Nazi Germany on account of being a
'degenerate', because his painting style was associated with Cubism – an
art movement incompatible with Nazi Germany's ideals. In 1935 when he
attempted to sell paintings while visiting Berlin, the police tried to
arrest him. He was able to flee the country with the help of his friend
Christian Zervos.
After he returned to Paris as a refugee, Hartung and his wife
divorced, and he became depressive. His paintings were becoming more
abstract and did not sell well. His friends tried to help him with his
financial difficulties, and the sculptor Julio González offered him the
use of his studio. In 1939 Hartung married González’s daughter Roberta.
In December 1939, he became a member of the French Foreign Legion. He
was closely followed by the Gestapo and arrested for seven months by
the French police. After they learned he was a painter, he was put in a
red cell in an attempt to disturb his vision. After being released he
rejoined the Legion to fight in North Africa, losing a leg in a battle
near Belfort. He earned French citizenship in 1945, and was awarded the
Croix de Guerre.
In 1947 in Paris he had his first solo exhibition. By the late 1950s
he had achieved recognition for his gestural paintings, which were
nearly monochromatic and characterized by configurations of long
rhythmical brushstrokes or scratches. In 1960 he was awarded the
International Grand Prix for painting at the Venice Biennale.
Hartung's freewheeling abstract paintings set influential precedents
for many younger American painters of the sixties, making him an
important forerunner of American Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and
1970s. He was featured in the 1963 film documentary "School of Paris: (5
Artists at Work)" by American filmmaker Warren Forma.
In the 1970s, Hartung and Anna-Eva Bergman remarried. He died on 7 December 1989, in Antibes, France.
HEIGHT OF FLUTE = 22 CMS
A BIT OF HISTORY
