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Creator: John Hansegger
Offered by: Gallery Moderne LSL USA LTD.

Description
J. K. Hansegger was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, in1908, and began his career as a professional artist in the 1920’s. His prodigious talent in painting brought him a critically acclaimed one-man show at the museum in Zug, Switzerland, by the age of twenty.

Restless, creative instincts and intellectual, philosophical and artistic curiosities then carried him to Brussels, Paris and Zurich over the next fourteen years. In Zurich, he was admitted to the “Kunstlervereinigung,” founded by Ferdinand Hodler, and to the “Allianz” of abstract painters, where he worked and exhibited with Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Hans Arp. Here he also founded and directed the Publishing House of Abstract Art; founded and directed the “Des Eaux Vives,” the only abstract art gallery in Europe at the time; and founded and directed the successful Kunstler Haus, a residence with studio complexes for artists of all types. At Kunstler Haus, Hansegger gave Paul Klee a one-man exhibit.

In Paris, Hansegger was admitted to the prestigious Surindependents, and he worked with Picasso. Hansegger’s penetrating portrait, capturing the paradox of the Spanish master, was accomplished from this association.

During the late 1930’s he exchanged ideas with P. Mondrian, A. Giacometti, W. Kandinsky, F. Leger and A. Reth, while he refined the techniques of realism, cubism, synthetic cubism, impressionism, expressionism, abstractionism and his own invention, erraticism. Each style may be found in his still lifes, portraits, landscapes and animal subjects, especially his famous roosters. Portraits remained his favorite subject matter, and he was especially proud to include Picasso, Freud, Einstein, Schweitzer, Thomas Mann, Toscannini and D.T. Suzuki (the Zen philosopher) among his subjects. Governor Nelson Rockefeller whom he met in America at the Kozel Restaurant (Hudson), attending a young Republican Award lunch. Hansegger’s development of erraticism involved a synthesis of neo-classic and semi-abstract elements into musical, free-form works, much on accidental, bright splashes of color and abstract interpretations of the basic forms of nature.

Out of his basic fascination with the pleasure of color elements and the rhythmic order of things, Hansegger believed that one should not try to understand beauty.
Erraticism, and its subsequent variations, was one of the precursors to the essentially American form, abstract expressionism, and the accidental “splash” technique of Jackson Pollack.

After Paris, Hansegger visited America before he embarked on an extended journey to Ecuador and then Africa. Prior to, and following, his permanent move to the United States in 1953, Hansegger employed a style he called ornamentalism. He borrowed from erraticism abstracted basic forms and bright colors, but the composition is more representational. Hansegger created a number of views of local scenes in the ornamental style around his home in Hillsdale, New York.

Throughout his lifetime, Hansegger had an intense fascination with portraiture. He believed the portrait was the most difficult aspect of painting, revealing the subject’s personality and physical appearance. Hansegger, no matter how far he delved into the abstract and even academic, always returned to portraiture. Hansegger, whose catalogue of works can easily be considered a microcosm of the history of modern art, believed it is useless to speak of styles and not by forcing the composition into whatever style is in vogue at the time. Hansegger’s portraiture encompasses all styles, from realistic to surrealistic, impressionistic to cubistic, depending on the subject.

Provenance
The estate of the artist.
Framed dimensions
52 x 42 inches.

Exhibited :-JOHN KONSTANTIN HANSEGGER at The Art Gallery at the Rockefeller State Park Preserve.

More Information

Documentation:	Ample Provenance
Origin:	United States, New York
Period:	1980-1999
Materials:	Oil on Canvas.
Condition:	Excellent.
Creation Date:	1983
Styles / Movements:	Modern
Book References:	J.K.Hansegger by Martica Sawin, Arts Inc. NY NY 1962.
Catalog References:	JOHN KONSTANTIN HANSEGGER at The Art Gallery at the Rockefeller State Park Preserve
Article References:	http://www.sikart.ch/KuenstlerInnen.aspx?id=4004764
News references:	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd6dp9zeuCc&feature=autoshare
Dealer Reference #:	IC43
Incollect Reference #:	124109