A Life of Color and Motion Born Johan Georg Albert in Weißenburg, Bavaria, the man who would become known to history as Hans Hofmann carried the spirit of the European avant-garde across the Atlantic. His early years were shaped by the streets of Munich, where he began his studies at various art schools in 1898. The path of his life was altered by the patronage of Philip Freudenberg, a collector from Berlin, whose support allowed Hofmann to wander through Paris between 1904 and 1914. In those Parisian years, he walked among the giants of modernism, finding himself in the company of figures li…