Hans Hofmann — German Artist born on March 21, 1880, died on February 17, 1966

Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter... (wikipedia)

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
The art of pictorial creation is so complicated - it is so astronomical in its possibilities of relation and combination that it would take an act of super-human concentration to explain the final realization.
My aim in painting is to create pulsating, luminous, and open surfaces that emanate a mystic light, in accordance with my deepest insight into the experience of life and nature.
Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.
What goes on in abstract art is the proclaiming of aesthetic principles... It is in our own time that we have become aware of pure aesthetic considerations. Art never can be imitation.