Born March 21, 1880 in Weissenburg, Germany, Hofmann was a highly influential Abstract Expressionist painter. He was active in the early twentieth-century European avant-garde movement taking a deep understanding and synthesis of Symbolism, Neo-impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism with him when he emigrated to the United States in 1932.
Hofmann was also one of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century: he established an art school in Munich in 1915, building on the ideas of the Cubists, possibly the first modern school of art in the world. After emigrating to the United States, he reopened the school in both New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts.
His painting is characterized by a rigorous concern with pictorial structure and unity, spatial illusionism, and bold and expressive use of colour. This is: Equinox.