Lithograph 'L7' (1974) gives the sensation that birds were flying through space. The color tones of this lithograph and its form are part of the composition. Spontaneous gesture and a contemporary spirit characterize Hartung's work method.

For Hans Hartung, graphic art was an immediate, important medium. Both of the lithographs offered here were printed by Erker Presse in St. Gallen. Hartung collaborated closely with this printing workshop and the Erker Gallery for many years. He began producing extensive graphic cycles in the 60's, and in 1973, Hans Hartung was again intensely active with the Erker-Presse. In 1974, in turn, he produced more lithographs during a longer stay in St. Gallen, including both of the excellent prints on offer here. A catalogue was published to his exhibit at the printing house: 'Hans Hartung. Grafik aus der Erker-Presse' (St. Gallen 1973). It included lithographs, woodcuts and linoleum cuts. The overview reveals the incredible creative capacity of the artist, who was then nearly 70. But the collaboration between Hartung and Erker-Presse, already in 1963 documented in a catalogue, was not yet over. Indeed, it lasted into the last year of his life, 1988. As a retrospective and in memory of the friend who passed away in 1989, a publication appeared in 1990 documenting all of the graphic works produced through this collaboration (reproduced therein is also lithograph 'L7' from 1974). Nothing could give a better idea, though, than the following passage, taken from formerly-mentioned catalogue from Erker-Verlag, a conversation between Heidi Bürklin and the artist during his stay in St. Gallen. At first, Hartung speaks of his first period in Dresden, his decisive discovery of the art of painters such as Slevogt, Corinth, Rohlfs, Nolde and French painting, whereby Hartung felt compelled to continue his studies, not at the Bauhaus, but in Paris. Although he had already ventured into an informal abstract formal solution, he returned to the figurative once again. He only returned to his gestural form of expression in 1933. One of his concerns remained to combine expression with aesthetics: 'I have attempted to unite both things, expression and form. Naturally, it is absolutely essential that one be really into it from the moment when one begins to work. First of all, the surrounding space - and then, quite precisely, the stroke as something definitive that one cannot erase, cannot correct. With lithography I can also work quickly. Here I remained in contact with myself, here I found the link between the quick stroke and the textured material....' Hartung worked in series, and these were extensive: 'When I begin,' he continued in the same conversation, 'I want to have 20 to 40 stones lying before me... and then it starts. But the lithographs that make this possible are not so easy to find. That is the great opportunity of St. Gallen. There one can find truly large stones. I love those real stones, in which there is a natural frame, and the texture, fine or rough.'

Hartung liked working to 'continuous' music - Bach, Schütz, Vivaldi - 'in the sense of a protective circle', as he said. And this leads us to the theme of the second print offered here, Hommage à J.S. Bach, from 1974. 'It is more the law than the object with which I am concerned.' And Hartung lets himself be 'led by this desire for insight into the laws of the world, into the order that is behind everything'. ek