August Light

7 February 1962, sold by Kootz Gallery (New York, NY) to Alexander and Henrietta W. Hollaender (Oak Ridge, TN); 1987, deposited on long-term loan to Elvehjem Museum of Art [ now called Chazen Museum of Art]; 1992, bequeathed to Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

• Villiger, Suzi, ed. "Hans Hofmann: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings." Farnham, Surry; Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2014. p. 148, no. P1078
• Elvehjem Art Center. "Inaugural Exhibition: 19th & 20th Century Art from Collections of Alumni & Friends." Madison, WI: Regents of the University of Wisconsin, 1970. pp. 92-93, no. 103
• Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Handbook of the Collection." Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Madison, 1990. no. 131
• Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Artscene" Vol. 3, No. 5, Fall 1987. p. 2
• Kunstmuseum Bern. "Teruko Yokoi: Tokyo--New York--Paris--Bern." Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlog, 2020. pp. 148, 159

• Inaugural Exhibition: 19th & 20th Cen. Art from Collection of Alumni & Friends: Elvehjem Art Center, 9/11/1970–11/8/1970
• 26th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, The: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1/16/1959–3/8/1959

This abstract painting is filled with overlapping fields and shapes of saturated color in shades of yellow, green, red, blue, white, brown, orange, and pink. The yellows and whites are luminous, creating the impression of light. The shapes are irregular and rectangular, rendered with gestural strokes of thickly applied paint. Most shapes are short and horizontal, other are long and vertical. There are no recognizable figures, text, or objects. The smallest and most densely applied shapes concentrate in the center and are primarily in shades of orange. A field of color dominates each corner. Starting in the top left and continuing clockwise, the corners are prominently yellow, green, yellow, and blue, respectively. In the painting’s top left, there is a golden-yellow field bordered along the canvas edges by faint yellow-green. A strip of golden-yellow stretches halfway down the left side, neighboring a vertical pink stripe and a patch of pale peach. Across the top, yellow reaches toward the center and merges with a white field. In the top center, yellow and white surround a prominent orange-red rectangular shape. Above this shape, a semi-circle of grass green extends from the top edge of the canvas. To the right, a deep-brown square overlaps a wall of cool, muddled green, which fills to the top right corner of the canvas. The green field descends to the bottom of the painting. It trails into distinct, sparse strokes and tapers away from the canvas’ right edge. A pale-yellow field fills the bottom right edge and corner. Three descending horizontal dashes of olive-green sit overtop. The artist’s painted signature is visible in the bottom right corner. To the signature’s left, a band of blue stretches along the bottom edge, extending to the bottom left corner in three dashed sections. Overlapping swatches of a paler blue, roughly blended with streaks of white, rise vertically, continuing halfway up the far-left side. Intersecting horizontal and vertical strokes of deep blue and bright yellow trail to the right. In the middle of the painting, shapes concentrate in a dense pattern. Rectangular orange swatches grow increasingly deeper and redder as they fall lower on the canvas. They overlap and mix arbitrarily with strokes of green, yellow, white, and blue.

• North America
• Paintings
• Alexander and Henrietta W. Hollaender Collection
• Alt Text Accessible

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