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American-Swiss artist Hans Gustav Burkhardt was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1904, He emigrated to New York in 1924, attending Cooper Union School of Art from 1925 to 1928. He shared Arshile Gorky’s studio for the better part of the years 1927-1937, first as a student, and ultimately as a colleague.

When he moved to Los Angeles in 1937, Burkhardt represented the most significant bridge between New York and Los Angeles in that his paintings of the 1930s are part of the genesis of American Abstract Expressionism. He brought with him many of the nascent ideas of abstract and abstract expressionist painting that had been swirling among New York’s artists, foremost among them, Gorky and Willem de Kooning. Working independently in Los Angeles, Burkhardt’s experimental investigative approach allowed him to parallel, and in many instances anticipate, the development of modern and contemporary art in New York and Europe.

Burkhardt’s ability to evoke compelling works of human empathy has led several of today’s preeminent art historians and critics to regard many of his paintings to be among the major works of our time. It has been argued, for example, that within Burkhardt’s prolific career, his art created in response to war – beginning with the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s and continuing through WW II, Vietnam and Desert Storm – represents a body of work unprecedented in the history of art. In his drawings Burkhardt, primarily through the use of the figure, has reflected the same richness of expressionism and symbolism for which he is known in his paintings.

Hans Burkhardt’s work are included in major collections and museums internationally, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the British Museum, Kunsthalle Basile, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A., Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Hans Burkhardt retired as a Professor Emeritus from CSUN (California State University Northridge) after teaching there for ten years.

His unique role as an important American painter is affirmed by the constant interest and continuing reassessment afforded his work.  In 1992, Hans Burkhardt was honored as the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.  In 1992, Burkhardt established the Hans G. and Thordis W. Burkhardt Foundation. [1]  He died on April 22, 1994,