Burkhardt, Hans

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Burkhardt, Hans

Born in Basel, Switzerland, Hans Burkhardt was an artist who created assemblage and used other modernist techniques to make statements about modern society and particularly to express his anti war beliefs. He lived to be ninety years old and made paintings in response to most of the wars of the 20th century. The day following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he began a series of Gulf War painting, which he continued throughout the war and its aftermath.

Desecrated American flags are frequent symbols in his work, and he also did figure and still life subjects.

Emigrating from Switzerland as a young man, he became a United States citizen, and from 1925 to 1928, studied at Cooper Union followed by a year at the Grand Central School of Art. From 1929 to 1936, he worked in the the studio of Arshile Gorky.

In 1959, he began a long-time teaching career in California, first as professor of painting and drawing at the University of Southern California, then at the University of California at Los Angeles, 1961 to 63, and from 1963 to retirement at California State University at Northridge.

His primary media were oil, pastel, and linocut, and his style was abstract using heavy paint application.

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