Hans Hartung * (Leipzig 1904–1989 Antibes) P1961–138, 1961, signed and dated; titled on the reverse, pastels and grattage on baryté cardboard, 73 x 50 cm, framed This work is registered at the Fondation Hans Hartung et Anna-Eva Bergmann, Antibes and will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné being prepared by the Fondation Hans Hartung et Anna-Eva Bergmann, Antibes. Provenance: European Private Collection Exhibited: Milan, Hans Hartung, l’harmonie des signes et des gestes, Galleria d’Arte Il Castello, 7 November 2017 – 8 January 2018, exh. cat. pp. 12–13 with ill. Mr. Mathieu, is abstract art easy? It is the easiest and most complicated of all paintings. When a figurative painter makes a painting, he has in front of him the object or the subject he is painting. He has time to reproduce it. He can go back to his canvas, correct it, judge its effects, compare it to the original, etc. In the abstract, and particularly in Lyrical Abstraction, it is the opposite. The artist is in front of his canvas. With his tubes of color and his imagination. No more reference points, no more rules. It is no longer a question of reproducing but of inventing. It is at the same time exhilarating and distressing. It requires an extraordinary concentration. The artist goes in an instant from the deepest despair to the most insane euphoria. It provides a prodigious emotion that the figurative painter will never know. Because it is the exaltation in the pure state. Georges Mathieu. Nord-Éclair. March 1998