In 1947 the architects Josep Lluís Sert and Paul Lester Weiner received a commission to produce a town plan for the industrial port of Chimbote on the northern coast of Peru. The commission, which was never completed, came from the Corporación Peruana del Santa, a government organisation inspired by the Tennessee Valley Authority which was in charge of the development of the north of Peru.

The studies, sketches and paintings done by Hans Hofmann for Chimbote in 1950 must be placed in that context: they are studies for paintings designed for the walls of the belfry of the church in the planned city, of mosaics for the ground in the square, which exemplify what the association between architects and artists advocated by Sert can be. The bright colours, the abundance of thick textures, the coexistence of straight and curved lines; everything refers us to the artist’s pictorial work, but also to the colourful Baroque world of South American native cultures.