Carl Holty - Artistic Career

Artistic Career

In 1926, while living in Munich, Holty originally planned to attend the Royal Academy, only to train under Hans Hofmann. Hofmann's ideas about space, color, shape would transform Holty's work, with Holty's work becoming more abstract as time went on.

"No one had ever talked to me about conceptual drawing, about knowing what I'm looking at from the point of view of my tactile knowledge as well as my visual knowledge. Hofmann did. And the world opened up just like that."
- Carl Holty on Hans Hofmann's influence

From 1930 to 1935 he lived in Paris, exhibiting his work to good reception. There he met Robert Delaunay and joined Delaunay's group Abstration-Création. He would have his work published in the groups magazine, and his work became associated with Cubism and Neo-Plasticism. His Paris works have been compared to the paintings of Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso's Synthetic Cubism.

Upon returning to the United States, he found artist representation in New York City and became involved, once again, with Hans Hofmann and Vaclav Vytlacil and Stuart Davis, the latter whom he knew in Paris. Vytlacil invited Holty to participate in discussions which led to the formation of the American Abstract Artists, which Holty would eventually come to chair, retaining his membership until 1944. During this time, he moved away from Cubism and started to experiment with Biomorphism. In the 1930s he used tape to give strong edges to forms, also reworking and overpainting sections, as seen in his work Gridiron (1943-1944). Between 1945 and 1948 he was represented by the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery. He continued to explore shapes and form, and in the 1960s contours had disappeared from his work, being replaced with subtle toned down colors.

Holty served as artist in residence at Georgia State University, University of Florida, University of California at Berkeley, University of Wisconsin and the Corcoran School of Art. He also wrote a book, with Romare Bearden, titled The Painter's Mind, published in 1969.