Muted Center (Blue Light)

Inscriptions

Signed, dated, and inscribed, on reverse: Muted Center / Hannes Beckman / 1965-73 / acrylic

Label

An artist and teacher, Beckmann was interested in the possibilities of perceptual painting to interrogate vision itself, how humans perceive figure-ground relationships. The gradual and systematic shifts in tone found in Muted Center (Blue Light) seem to recede, creating a powerful visual and sensory reaction and the illusion of a room. When asked about his work and the work of his contemporaries, Beckmann said, “it runs parallel to what is going on in the world of mathematics, in physics. That things are not absolute.”

Hannes Beckmann studied at the Bauhaus in Germany and later moved to Prague where he and his Jewish wife were later interned at concentration camps during the German Occupation of Czechoslovakia. He brought his knowledge of holistic psychology and color theory to the United States in the late 1940s.

From the 2023 exhibition Kent Monkman: The Great Mystery, curated by Jami Powell, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs & Curator of Indigenous Art

Course History

Film Studies 42.23, Travelers and Tourists, Heidi Denzel, Spring 2023

College Course 21.01, What's In Your Shoebox? , Francine A'Ness and Mokhtar Bouba, Spring 2023

Native American and Indigenous Studies 21.01, Indigenous People Political Economies, Raymond Orr, Spring 2023

Native American and Indigenous Studies 30.26, Indigenous Geographies, Elan Pochedley, Spring 2023

Native American and Indigenous Studies 8.01, Perspectives in Native American Studies, Raymond Orr, Spring 2023

Philosophy 1.11, Art: True, Beautiful, Nasty, John Kulvicki, Summer 2023

English 62.05, Horrors of Survival: Modern American Literature, Jamie Godley, Summer 2023

First Year Student Enrichment Program – Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Mokhtar Bouba, Summer 2023

Writing 2.05, Why Write, Anyway?, Erkki Mackey, Fall 2023

College Course 26.01, What's In Your Toolbox?, Francine A'Ness and Mokhtar Bouba, Fall 2023

Writing 5.05, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Fall 2023

Writing 5.06, Image and Text, Becky Clark, Fall 2023

College Course 35.01, Color in Art & Philosophy, John Kulvicki and Viktor Witkowski, Winter 2024

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Doug Moody, Summer 2023

Exhibition History

"Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960's", Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, February 16-June 17, 2007.

Colorful Squares, Vehicles of Artistic Ideas, A Space for Dialogue 84, Xinyue Guo, Class of 2014, Kathryn Conroy Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 13-November 2, 2014.

Hannes Beckman Paintings 1972-75, Goethe Institute Touring Exhibition, Atlanta, Georgia; Worchester, Massachusetts; Burlington, Vermont; Boston, Massachusetts; Montreal, Canada; Toronto, Canada; New York, New York, 1977-1978; The Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, New York, New York, September 12-29, 1978; Plymouth State College Art Galleries, Plymouth, New Hampshire, Ocotber 12-November 16, 1978; Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire, November 19-December 15, 1978; Art Center in Hargate, St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, January 5-February 4, 1979.

Hannes Beckmann Paintings at Dartmouth, Carpenter Galleries, Darmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 3-November 30, 1975; Nashua Arts and Science Center, Nashua, New Hampshire; Danford Museum, Framingham, Massachusetts; Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont.

Kent Monkman: The Great Mystery, Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 8 - December 9, 2023.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

Recent Acquisitions, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-27, 1974.

Publication History

Hannes Beckmann Paintings 1972-1975 (August 1978), no.5

Joe Houston, Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s, London and New York: Merrill Publishers Limited, in association with Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, 2007, ill. p. 106, fig. 131.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.45, no.22.

Xinyue Guo, Colorful Squares, Vehicles of Artistic Ideas, A Space for Dialogue 84, Hanover New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2014, checklist no. 3.

Provenance

The artist (1909-1977), Hanover, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 1973.

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