Hans Burkhardt
Born Switzerland , 1904-1994 (active United States )
Approaching Storm, 1956
oil on canvas
50 × 60 in.
SBMA, Museum Purchase, with funds provided by the Ala Story Purchase Fund
1957.21
One fellow artist, of no small reputation, has said,"When I die my work will be merely decorative, but Han's work will live."
RESEARCH PAPER
As the artist conveyed to me, in a personal interview, this painting began with a series of sketches made from Lone Pine, California, to Mt. Whitney. The sketches were mostly from rocks and plants on the ground just before going up the mountain. It was in autumn, on the way a storm began and everything was in autumn colors and the black cloud was from the coming storm. When he returned home he made a number of sketches beginning with reality and gradually becoming abstract and then he did the painting. He remembers it as a happy time - there was no war going on in which the United States was involved.
It has been said that if he belongs to any school it would be labeled abstract expressionist symbolism. As with most artists, he has been influenced during his early work, but for many years his art has been entirely from within himself and his reactions to the scenes around him of men and women, children, animals, objects and more particularly by the hydrogen bombs; political upheavals; the affects of cigarette smoking; and especially wars.
Vans Burkrhardt was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1904. His father went to the United States in 1907, expecting to have his family follow as soon as he was settled. Due to a depression he could not and in 1910 his mother died and he and his two sisters were placed in an orphan's home in Basel. Within a short time his father wanted his children to join him but the City Government of Basel would not allow them to emigrate and, as a result, Hans was in the orphanage until he was fourteen when they apprenticed him to a gardener for two years.
He always wanted to draw and remembers vividly receiving a box of crayons one Christmas while in the orphanage and how much he enjoyed using them.
During his teens he visited the Art Museum of Basel, particularly admiring Boeklin, and the great Swiss painter., Hodler.
He joined his father and stepmother in New York in 1924, was soon admitted to the Cooper Union, where he studied period decoration and won first prize in student competition his first year. Later at the Grand Central School of Art, studying, drawing and paint ing under Arshile Gorky, he was completely happy.
Due to his admiration for Gorky he studied with him privately and during the depression was able to help Gorky by purchasing many of his works which resulted in his owning one of the most prominent private collections of early Gorky paintings and drawings.
A mental depression, resulting from the death of his stepmother and father, made him feel he should leave the scene of the tragedies, and in 1937 he moved to Los Angeles, where he still lives high in the Hollywood Hills, in a house he built himself, which he shares with his wife Thordis, a teacher and Phi Beta Kappa, who understands his work and deeply appreciates his creations.
He has taught art at Long Beach State College, U.S.C., U.C.L.A., Otis Art Institute, California Institute of the Arts, Laguna Beach School of Art and Design, and the State University of California, Northridge, He continues to be an influential and inspired teacher and is greatly respected by his students.
Although most of his paintings are abstracted from reality, his many realistic drawings and pastels executed over the years make clear that he is a brilliant draftsman.
He has spent several years at various times drawing and painting in Mexico. He wonders sometime, whether his work would have been different had he been able to spend those times in Europe.
Many other artists respect his work and feel that his place in the art world will increase greatly as time goes on. In fact one fellow artist, of no small reputation, has said,"When I die my work will be merely decorative, but Han's work will live."
As an added note, Hans and Thordis Burkhardt in 1975 gave more than 150 paintings, prints and drawings to the California State University, Northtridge, which will remain in their permanent collection.
Bibliography:
1. 1961-1962 Retrospective (1931 - 1961) shown at the Santa Barbara. Museum of Art, California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Barnsdall Park„ Los Angeles, California.
2. 1966 San Diego Art Institute – forty year retrospective.
3. 1966-1967 Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego.
4. 1972 Retrospective Exhibition Long Beach Museum of Art. (1950-1972)
5. 1975 Works donated by Hans and Thordiq Burkhard _, including works by significant twentieth century artists.
6. Personas, Interview with Hates Burkhardt, May 29, 1977.
Prepared for the Docent Council of SBMA by Joan Grant.
Paper written prior to death in 1994, no date given.
Prepared for website Nov. 2005 by LG