Hans Burkhardt Abstract Artwork 1986 Unframed Artwork 5.5" x 7.5"
Signed and numbered: 37/40
Hans Burkhardt
Swiss, 1904–1994
Hans Burkhardt is known for his meticulously structured and balanced paintings that blur the distinction between abstraction and representation. Burkhardt continually returned to depictions of the horrors of war through abstract fragments of bombs, strewn limbs, wounds, and devastated landscapes; his anti-war paintings date from as early as World War II and as recently as the Gulf War in the early 1990s. A talented draughtsman and former student of Arshile Gorky, Burkhardt thought painting must have careful drawing as its basis: He always sketched in pencil, pastels, or ink before building up his heavily layered, fleshy surfaces in oil.