Hans Purrmann

A master of colour and an ambitious cosmopolite: Hans Purrmann (1880–1966) was an authoritative figure who forged links in European Modernism both as an artist and a personality, as a stylist and a figure of social integration. The balance between a record of what he saw and the visual reflexion of painting as a form of expression hovers lightly in his pictures.

As a young man Purrmann encountered the latest movements of the art of his time in Munich and Berlin, but after moving to Paris he established contact with the avant-garde in the circle of artists at the Café du Dôme. He became a student and friend of Henri Matisse, with whom he ran an art school. Political events and the world wars turned Purrmann into an artist who travelled through Europe and who knew how to find his subjects based on the beauties of the world in every location. The book offers a representative cross-section through his opulently colourful work.