Composition

Kurt Rudolf Hoffmann Sonderborg

This "Composition" is an excellent example of Sonderborg's Tachist work. Influenced by both the experimental prints being done at Atelier 17 in Paris and his exposure to the "Action Painting" of the New York Abstract Expressionists Sonderborg creates a swirling, gestural image in aquatint. He tempers the calligraphic black with some color, blue and red-orange, which adds an even more explosive element to the composition.

An impression of this aquatint is in the Museum of Modern Art, New York collection and was used in an exhibition in 2006, titled "Eye on Europe" and is illustrated in color on page 16, figure 1.

Kurt Rudolf Hoffmann was born in Sonderborg, Denmark on April 5, 1923, went to school in Hamburg, Germany and completed a merchant's apprenticeship in 1939. He became a private student of the painter Ewald Becker-Carus in Hamburg in 1946. From 1947 to 1949 he studied painting, graphic art and textile design at the State Art School in Hamburg under Willem Grimm and Maria May.

In 1951 artist Kurt Rudolf Hoffmann began calling himself K.R.H. Sonderborg, after the town he was born in. Starting in 1953, he became a member of the group “Zen 49” and he went to Paris the same year where he learned engraving from Stanley William Hayter at the Atelier 17. Paris is also the place where he first encountered Tachism. In the years following the artist continued his travel and worked for some time in London, Cornwall, New York, Ascona, Rome and Paris again. While in New York, Sonderborg came into contact with Action Painting and Abstract Expressionism.

His own style became more abstract, painting using swift, gestural strokes that reveal the painting process, with spontaneous color application. Black and white contrasts are an important feature, later he added colors such as cadmium red.

From 1965 to 1990 Sonderborg held a post as professor of painting at the Stuttgart Art Academy. In 1969/70 he was a guest lecturer at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as well as at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986.

K.R.H. Sonderborg died in Hamburg, Germany on February 18, 2008.