German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer

Jessica Reichman
and
E.R.Hagemann

In 1983, Col. Francis (Frank) W. ImMasche, (USAF, Ret.) bequeathed

four oil on canvas paintings and seven holograph letters by German
Expressionist artist Karl Hofer to the permanent art collection at Kansas
State University, Manhattan, Kansas.’ The paintings, all representative
of Hofer’s classical style, comprise Look Over Lake Lugano, 1943; Still
Life With Basket of Pears, 1943; Waiting Woman, 1945; and Vase of
Sunflowers, 1946. The works and letters are valuable in that they indicate
two very different moods as well as modes of Hofer.
Although not as well known as his more famous contemporaries
Karl Schmidt-Routluff, Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann,
and others, Karl Hofer was an active participant in the German
Expresssionist movement. Professor Ida Katherine Rigby, Hofer schoIar
and author of Karl Hofer, states that his style and ideology were more
“aligned with conservative concepts and values. In his work he
acknowledged the advent of Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and
non-objective art only superficially.”‘ His work concentrated on the
figurative and representative; he intensely disliked abstract art. As a
student, Hofer studied art at academies in Berlin, Paris and Rome where
he received a strong classical foundation. The human form was of primary
importance to Hofer while color seemed to play a secondary role.
Throughout his long career Hofer was an artist of two minds with a
vision for the classical and the macabre. “Hofer vacillated between the
expressionist and classical poles; at some times the classical vision
predominated, at others compelling subconscious imagery surfaced.”3
Many critics think Hofer’s most creative and inventive work was in the
Expressionist tradition.
In 1933 the bold works of Hofer and many of his contemporaries
were summarily condemned by the Hitler regime as “degenerate and
alien to the National Socialist spirit.” In that same year Hofer was the
first professor to be dismissed from the Berlin Hochschule fur Bildende
Kunste, a post he had held since 1920. By 1937 all of his artworks that
had been displayed in German museums were confiscated for the infamous
Munich Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) Exhibit staged by Hitler and
his military men.* Even though Hofer had been censured by the Nazis

1
2 Journal of Popular Culture
and would continue to be during World War 11, he was very productive.
Ironically, he sold more canvases during the Third Reich than he did
prior to 1933. Transactions took place in the back rooms of Berlin galleries
to patrons who represented their “credentials” in a “speak-easy
atmosphere. ” 5
Remark should be made that in October 1938, at the 36th
International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Hofer was awarded First Prize ($1,000 cash) and world-wide recognition
for his painting, T h e Wind.He was the first German to be so honored.
Interestingly enough, Castle from the River, Prague, an oil by Oskar
Kokoschka, Austrian-born Expressionist, was judged by ArtNews, an
American art journal, to be the best landscape in the Exhibition.
This was not the first time Hofer had been named by the Carnegie.
In October 1934, at the 32nd International Exhibition, he garnered Second
Prize ($1,000) for his oil Pastoral. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., of the Museum
of Modern Art, was a member of the Jury of Award. By 1938, because
of the Great Depression, the monetary amount had been reduced.
In March 1943, Hofer’s studio was burned in an Allied bombing
raid; and in November of the same year Hofer’s home was destroyed;
over 300 works of art were lost. After the war ended in Europe in May
1945, Hofer became Director of the reopened Hochschule. He also
commenced the lengthy and what must have been the painful process
of re-painting from memory or photographs the most important of his
lost works.
ImMasche, then a lieutenant colonel, met Karl Hofer after World
War I1 when devastated Germany was partly occupied by American armed
forces. ImMasche, serving under General Lucius D. Clay, was in the
American sector of Berlin in 1947 on a special assignment with the Office
of Military Government for Germany (U.S.) Lt. Col. ImMasche assisted
General Clay in directing civil affairs in the American zone of occupation.
Clay was Deputy Military Governor of Germany. The myriad
responsibilities of his organization included “restoring wartime plunder,
addressing the problems of inadequate supplies of food, housing, health,
government, currency, industry, religion, refugees, and denazification.”6
ImMasche has stated that he wanted a remembrance of his military duty
in Germany, but did not want Meissen porcelain or Leica cameras. He
wished to purchase a painting since he opined it “would give him lasting
and growing sati~faction.”~Since authentic Old Masters were
unobtainable, works by contemporary artists such as Karl Hofer or Max
Pechstein (1881-1955),were suggested by a friend on General Clay’s staff.
ImMasche visited Karl Hofer at his studio at Barstrasse 9 in Berlin-
Wilmersdorf in 1947. Although the war was officially over, life was
anything but easy for the Germans who remained in the capital. The
economy was volatile, food was rationed, and the future of Germany,
 German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer 3

Fig. 1 Waiting Woman, 1945.

Kansas State University Permanent Art Collection

as a state was in doubt. German artists, Hofer among them, were glad
to have as many patrons as possible.
ImMasche relates that Hofer selected The Waiting Woman (fig. 1)
for him since i t was the most representative and typical of his style.
Initially, ImMasche was secretly disappointed with the painting, but
grew to like it and soon was eager to have a greater cross section of
Hofer’s output. With the help of Mary Snow Corr, an American artist
friend of ImMasche’s who was living in Berlin, ImMasche returned to
Hofer’s studio and selected the landscape Look Over Lake Lugano (fig.
2 ) and a still life, Basket ojPears (fig. 3 ) . Miraculously, these three canvases
had survived the war.
Actually, ImMasche “bought” the works with CARE packages. The
payment for these three paintings seems unusual by today’s standards,
but it was most practical because inflation was very high in Germany
and German marks were next to worthless. In a note handwritten by
4 Journal of Popular Culture

Fig. 2 Look Over Lake Lugano, 1943.

Kansas State University Permanent Art Collection

Fig. 3 Basket of Pears, 1943.

Kansas State University Permanent Art Collection.
 German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer 5

-.

Fig. 4 Receipt for three of Hofer’s paintings: Waiting Woman, Basket of Pears, and
Look Over Lake Lugano. The receipt was handwritten by Col. ImMasche and signed
by Karl Hofer.

ImMasche the following agreement was reached: “This is to certify that

Lt. Col. F.W. ImMasche has purchased three of my painting for which
he is to send me CARE packages. Berlin, Germany 1 August 1947.”
[Signed] Karl Hofer (fig. 4)
CARE, an acronym for Cooperative for American Remittances to
Europe, “was an organization that was started on 27 November 1945
for the specific purpose of distributing food, clothing, and supplies to
needy people in Europe. CARE was meant to be a temporary agency
serving as a conduit until normal channels could be restored.”* The
CARE agency began dispatching packages to Europe May 1946.
ImMasche’s notes reveal that Hofer requested such hard-to-get items
as butter, cheese, flour, tobacco, rice, and sugar. Many of those food
items were part of the “Standard Food Package” that one could purchase
for $10.00. A 1950 advertisement for CARE states that the Standard Food
Package “was full of the staple items a housekeeper always wants to
have on hand; including five different kinds of meat, and welcome ‘extras’
like honey and preserves. . . The Packages were sent to Austria, Belgium,
”

Finland, France, Germany (3 Western Zones and Berlin only), The

Netherlands, and Norway. The packages were prepacked; therefore, the
recipients could not select the contents, although later on CARE packages
were designed to fill special needs and appeal to national dietary custom^.^
6 Journal of Popular Culture
Upon his separation from the United States Army Air Forces and
promotion to colonel, ImMasche returned to the U.S. in September 1947
and promptly had the three paintings stretched and framed at the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The three paintings are excellent examples of Hofer’s classical style.
L o o k Over L a k e Lugano, (1943), 28 1/2 x 36 x 2 1/2 inches (framed),
is probably a view from Hofer’s Swiss vacation home which he purchased
in 1925. He returned to the home regularly through 1939, the year World
War I1 broke out in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland.l0
Professor Rigby is of the opinion that the landscapes created while
Hofer was in Switzerland “were in the classical tradition of Corot.”ll
Flat cubistic planes form the buildings in the foreground and middle
ground. The warm, subtle colors reflected in the red tile roofs and the
surrounding foliage help highlight the clearly defined white structures.
The clean lines of the architecture also provide a pleasing contrast to
the misty receding perspective of the lake and mountains in the
background.
Hofer’s still life Basket of Pears (1943), 21 x 26 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches
(framed) is another example from his classical mode. The placement
of the fruit, the muted colors, draped cloth, obvious brush strokes, and
the forward tilted planar surface of the table make clear references to
the nature mortes of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), whom Hofer greatly
adrnired along with many German contemporaries.
A large part of Hofer’s work centered around symbolism and
iconography. Waiting W o m a n (1945), 37 x 29 x 1 112 inches (framed),
may be an allegorical figure that represented Germany’s desire for the
end of war. Rigby states that “Hofer painted little in 1945. With the
end of the war he was occupied with the reconstruction of German cultural
life and had little time for his own work.”12 The figure in Waiting W o m a n
is delineated by sharp lines accented by her finely chiseled features. Her
mouth is set, and her lips sightly pursed while she gazes past the viewer
into space. Her expression is somewhat ambiguous as the viewer may
perceive her pose as calm, or as rigid and tense. She is appareled in
a sienna colored robe and her head is covered with a stiffly starched
cowl. Her folded hands are resting on a green table. Hofer frequently
“framed” many of his figures in a doorway or window. The female in
Waiting W o m a n is in front of a doorway and therefore follows his
prescribed formula.
In addition to sending Hofer CARE packages, ImMasche, was quite
concerned with Hofer’s well-being, and correspondence between the two
men began in March 1948. (Hofer’s letters written in inexact English,
are extant; no originals or copies of ImMasche’s letters to Hofer were
found in ImMasche’s papers). In his first holograph letter (ALS) to
ImMasche dated 18 March 1948, Hofer lists the titles to the three paintings
 German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer 7
the colonel purchased and continues, “Now about your desire to have
more of my paintings. I have worked lately on bigger ones, not suitable
for private apartments.” (ImMasche, who was working for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture lived in a small apartment in Washington
D.C.). Hofer makes a reference to a n art exhibit he would have in Munich
the following month and ends his letter with a personal observation
about the despair of post war Germany, “. . .the future is dark and grows
darker from day to day, and as the Western powers are doomed to remain
inactive, Berlin one day will be shut u p and lost behind the iron curtain.”
From the next Hofer letter, dated 14 April 1948, one can infer that
ImMasche was interested in buying even more Hofer paintings. Mrs.
Snow, acting o n ImMasche’s behalf, chose a landscape for him. Hofer
writes, “For arrangement [payment for the canvas] I prefered [sic] in
this moment German money, the situation being rather doubtful in the
future and nobody knows whether we are cut off, so that parcels don’t
reach Berlin. It seems that about 20,000 are accumulated at the zone
frontier. Nevertheless I got one from you these days and thank you for
it.” Details were taken care of so that Mrs. Snow could bring the painting
to the U.S. “Zone frontier,” in Hofer’s letter, refers to the fact that Germany
was then divided into four zones, each controlled by one of the Powers,
USSR, England, France, and the U.S.; Berlin was similarly divided but
not in a particular zone.
O n 4 May 1948, ImMasche received a letter from Hofer which said
that “. . .the Snows find difficulties in getting enough German money,
20,000 and 12,000 marks [the price of ImMasche’s landscape painting,
and another Hofer painting chosen by the Snow’s for their personal
collection]. So we don’t know what to do, almost in the moment. But
I hope finding out a convenient solution of this problem.” Hofer notes
that he had received more parcels from ImMasche and ends the letter
with a familiar phrase, “The future is dark.”
Evidently the transaction for the purchase of additional Hofer
paintings never took place. In a particularly depressing letter of 29
September 1948 (fig. 5 ) Hofer makes a vague reference to the troubled
economic situation: “The time in which we are damned to live in is
not at all suitable for arrangements [payment for paintings?] of any kind
for we never know as you mention yourself, what next day will bring,
whether we are cut off from the rest of the world or not.” Hofer continues,
“CARE parcels come through, irregularly, but they come. As everything
is needed it is quite indifferent what the contents may be. T h e winter
with that blockade will be very difficult, there is n o [sic] any hope of
any reason in politics. We have to suffer the results. I hope we can stand
them.”
“Blockade,” in fact the entire letter, alludes to possibly the most
astonishing event in all of post-World War I1 European history. On
24 June 1948, the USSR set up what came to be known as the Berlin
8 Journal of Popular Culture

Fig. 5 Letter from karl Hofer dated 29 September 1948 to Col. ImMasche.
 German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer 9

Fig. 6 Vase of Sunflowers, 1946.

Kansas State University Permanent Art Collection.

Blockade which banned all land traffic between Western Germany and
Berlin. The next day, 25 June, the Berlin Airlift was put in operation
by American and British planes which brought supplies to some 2,000,000
people in West Berlin sector. By September, the Airlift was carrying 4,500
tons per day. Little wonder that Hofer was perturbed by events. After
considerable diplomatic wrangling and the realization that the Allies
had won over the Blockade, USSR formally lifted it on 12 May 1949.13
But planes continued to fly.
On 6 July 1949, Hofer wrote a much more positive letter to his
American friend. “Things are going better on now without the Russian
menace before the doors we are on the way to a somewhat normal life.
Just like in wartime we hear day and night the rumbling of your airplanes,
but this time bringing food and coal!”
10 Journal of Popular Culture
In the last holograph letter from Hofer, dated 9 February 1950, he
describes a certain albeit slow and slight amelioration. “Things have
remarkably changed since you have been here. Then one hadt [sic] enough
money, but ther [sic] was nearly nothing to buy, nowadays nearly
everything’s to be had, but nobody has money, the not salaried artists
being in a rather desperate situation. Thanks for your kind offer of help,
but as long as we are able to provide for ourselves, we would not think
it correct asking for anything.” Hofer goes on to express his fear of
the Russians saying they “had every desirable pretext for nuisance.” It
is possible that ImMasche had visited Hofer in Berlin some time before
this letter was written.
ImMasche received what seems to have been one final communication
from Hofer, an oddly typed aerogramme (TLS), 18 May 1954, wherein
the dapital “J” i s substituted for the capital “I”, that is the first-person
pronoun, reflecting his native tongue. The letter is basically unintelligible
because a stamp was ripped off the paper and destroyed the most important
part of the contents. However, Hofer’s final words can be read: “As long
as I can work I feel very well, and I think it will be the same with
you.” He must have had a premonition that his life was coming to
a close. He died less than a year later on 3 April 1955 at the age of
76.
However, ImMasche’s interest in Hofer remained strong. He collected
newspaper articles about Hofer with partial transcripts of his letters,
the accuracy of which cannot be vouched for. These were originally
published in the San Francisco Chronicle and reprinted in the
Washington Post (dates of issues unknown). ImMasche kept them in
a scrap book with the letters he had received from Hofer.14
In June 1958, ImMasche purchased another Hofer oil painting, Vuse
of Sunflowers (1946), (fig. 6) 42 1/2 x 29 112 x 3 118 inches (framed)
from a Mrs. A.J. Dunn of Annandale, Virginia for an undisclosed amount
of money. The Dunns had purchased the painting when they were in
Germany, but according to Mrs. Dunn’s note to ImMasche the painting
was too large to fit in their Virginia home.’5
Vase of Sunflowers, somewhat reminiscent of Vincent Van Gogh’s
sunflower paintings, is the least characteristic Hofer painting in the
Kansas State University Collection. It depicts a large vase of brilliant
yellow flowers on a table set against a grey-blue background. It is the
largest of the four purchased by ImMasche, its size and bright colors
provide a striking contrast to the other, more subtle, works. It is certainly
a good example of Hofer’s classical style, but it leaves little to one’s
imagination or one’s aesthetic analysis.
ImMasche retired from the Department of Agriculture in 1967. He
loaned his Hofer paintings to many art groups in the Washington D.C.
 German Expressionist Artist Karl Hofer 11
area, and made arrangements to donate Waiting Woman and Look Ouer
Lake Lugano to the National Gallery of Art in 1973. In a letter dated
27 November 1973 to ImMasche from John Hand, Museum Curator of
the NGA, Hand states, “. . .all gifts must first be approved by the Director
who may recommend them to the Board of Trustees.” The donation
was never made; perhaps because the gift was not recommended.
Therefore, the Hofer paintings remained in ImMasche’s Washington
apartment until his death in 1983.
Had it not been for the vicissitudes of World War I1 Francis ImMasche
and Karl Hofer would not have met. Despite their two very different
backgrounds, they developed a special form of mutual respect 2nd
friendship. It is too bad that we do not have ImMasche’s letters, but
in those from Hofer we glimpse devestated, war-ravaged Germany. One
would never get that impression from viewing Hofer’s tranquil paintings.

’ImMasche (the name is of German origin) was graduated from Kansas State
University i n 1929 with a Bachelor of Science i n Agricultural Administration. Prior
to enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 at the age of 35, he was a n upper-
level bureaucrat i n the Farm Credit Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture.
2KarZ Hofer (New York: Garland Publishing Co., Inc., 1976), p. xiv. T h e works
discussed in this article are not included i n the checklist of Hofer’s oeuvre compiled
by Rigby (California State University, San Diego) and appended to her study. What
hangs a t Kansas State University, is therefore, “unknown.”
SIbid., p. 79.
4The exhibit opened o n 19 July and was on-view for four months. T h e works
of 112 artists, both German and non-German, were included. After it closed in Munich,
the exhibit traveled to various German cities, Berlin chief among them. There was
what might be called a catalogue. See Henry Grosshaus, Hitler and the Artists (New
York: Holmes and Meyers, 1983), p. 105, p. 109.
SYvonne Hagan, “An Interview with Carl Hofer,” Magazine of Art, (March 1948),
p. 103. T h e author has preferred to spell Hofer’s prename with a “C,” as he did
in some of his letters.
&RogerJ. Spiller, ed., Dictionary of American Military Biography (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984), I, 186.
7Francis W. ImMasche, personal papers, 16 May 1958.
BEugene Linden, The Alms Race (New York: Random House, 1976), p. 11.
9Information kindly furnished by CARE, 660 First Avenue, New York, New York
10016, from the archives.
lORigby, p. 141.
”Ibid., p. 142.
lzIbid., p. 246.
l3Irving S. and Nell M. Kull, A Short Chronology of American History, 1492-
1950, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1952, p. 290, p. 292,
passim.
12 Journal of Popular Culture
“Future biographers and critics of Hofer will want to track down these letters,
addressed to Mrs. Irma Engel, a San Francisco artist, and written in 1946 and 1947.
See Alfred Frankenstein, “ ‘We Are Victims of Latent War’: Letters from a German
Artist,” San Francisco Chronicle, ca. 1952.
I5All dimensions in this article proceed from height to width to depth.

Jessica Reichman is Curator of the permanent art collection at Kansas State University,
Manhattan, Kansas. E.R. Hagemann is a resident of Louisville, Kentucky.