Hans Hofmann born in 1880 in Weissenburg, Bavaria, spent the first half of his life there. He first moved to Paris in 1904 where he lived for another decade, and during which time the greatest influence on his work was Cézanne. In 1914 he returned to Munich where the following year he established an art school. In 1930 Hofmann moved permanently to the United States where he was invited to teach a summer-session class at the University of California-Berkeley. He taught there again in 1931 during which time he wrote his first version of Creation in Form and Color: A Textbook for Instruction in Art. Hofmann made a name for himself primarily as a teacher. This blend of the various influences of distinct cultures, traditions, and styles, along with the many artists he met as a result, deeply affected Hofmann's art. It was as though he could not reconcile the many influences and stick with one, so he commonly used many in each painting he created.

In 1932 Hofmann closed his Munich school and moved to New York to teach at the Art Students League. In 1934 he opened the Hofmann School of Fine Arts in New York, which led to his becoming known as the father of Abstract Expressionism and of the New York School. Hofmann is, perhaps, best known for his use of brilliant color, wherein several colored rectangles seem to float over a background of loosely brushed but heavily built-up colors . . . Hofmann explained his theory of the use of space in his paintings as 'push-pull' theory of movement. He said that Italian perspective is all wrong. He felt that the illusion had only one direction in depth, and that nothing came back. However, he said that in his paintings space goes in and it comes back. The tensions he creates show shapes that are constantly moving in and out."1 This "push and pull" leads the eye to each part of the picture, rather than letting it rest on one particular spot.