Printemps Pomme II

About Printemps Pomme II

This contemporary landscape painting of a tree was created by Peter Hoffer.

Canadian artist Peter Hoffer captures the glory of an apple tree in spring in this vividly coloured mixed media piece on panel. Known for his romantic, classic landscapes, Hoffer’s unique style marries realism, impressionism, and abstract expressionism. Hoffer’s trees are distinctive because they appear to have ‘personalities’ as each one is quite different. He employs a variety of techniques to achieve this effect by using fine layers of resin, and adding markings, scratches, and drippings. The result is thoroughly modern. This process of varnishing the surface of his work was influenced by the 19th-century practice of Salon exhibitions in Paris. Painters who attended several different salons would add another layer of varnish to ‘refresh’ paintings that had not sold so many works had thick multiple layers. This single apple tree is captured at the height of the season resplendent in a palette of pinks, melon, and pale yellow against the backdrop of a clear turquoise-blue sky and bright green field.

“I wanted to do the landscape in a manner in which it is personified. Where the tree becomes the individual, even playing on some clichés." Peter Hoffer

“There is a sense of painterly surface and medium as well as of literary depth and meaning.” Lynn Moore, The Montreal Gazette

Peter Hoffer holds an MFA from Concordia University and degrees from the University of Guelph and OCAD University. Hoffer has lived and worked in Toronto, New York City, Paris, Montreal, and Berlin. He has exhibited widely at art fairs in Basel, Toronto, New York, Stockholm, London, Milan, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. His paintings are held in many private, corporate, and public collections around the world.