A very nice article written by Jeffrey Morseburg. (source: arminhansen.wordpress) Armin Hansen Monterey’s Man of the Sea by Jeffrey Morseburg Armin Hansen (1886-1957) was one of the most unique painters in history of California art. While his artistic focus was always on men and the sea, his treatment of this timeless subject was dramatically different from the work of his contemporaries. Hansen’s figures had the monumentality of Winslow Homer’s (1836-1910) fishermen, but he painted them in a much more expressive manner, with a palette all his own. His compositions relied on broad planes of vivid color and their flatness gave some of his works the simplicity of a Japanese wood block print. Although Hansen has often been classified as an Impressionist, the deep, cool palette and the expressive brushwork he used in so many of his marines make him a difficult artist to categorize. Armin Hansen was born in San Francisco in 1886. His father was Herman Hansen (1854-1924), the Danish-born painter of the Old West and it was his father who gave his young son his early instruction in art. The interesting fact about Hansen’s youth is that his father actually discouraged him from seeking a career in art, probably because the western painter knew how difficult an artistic career could be. Eventually the headstrong young boy won his father’s approval and embarked on the life of an artist. In 1903 Hansen began his artistic studies at the Mark Hopkins Institute, based in the Nob Hill mansion of the late industrialist, where he worked under the discerning eye of Arthur Matthews. When the earthquake leveled the Hopkins Institute along with the rest of the city, he went to Stuttgart, where he studied with the German painter Carlos Grethe (1864-1913). Although most of his contemporaries ventured to France, Germany was a practical choice for Hansen as his family was from the section of mainland Denmark that was then adjacent to Germany and now part of it. In some accounts of Hansen’s life his studies with Grethe are mentioned, but perhaps not emphasized enough. Because Grethe painted marine subjects and we know that Hansen was already interested in the sea, it is possible that the San Franciscan sought out the German painter. In any event, it was an ideal match of teacher and student, for a careful study of Grethe’s work reveals that he had a significant impact on the development of Hansen’s art. Grethe was actually a Uruguayan of German parentage who was a member of the German Secession, a modern movement that was active in the major German and Austrian cities that broke away from the strictures of the art establishment. Grethe painted primarily harbor subjects, but in a very expressive, painterly way, using a warm, tonal palette. After working with Grethe, Hansen visited Munich, Brugge and Paris and became conversant with the styles of painting that were popular on the continent. In 1908 he moved to the small art colony of Nieuwpoort, on the Belgian coast, which was one of his teacher’s favorite places to paint. It was in the Flemish towns on the English Channel that Hansen began painting fishermen, the subject that he would dedicate the rest of his life to. Irresistibly drawn to the sea, he signed on to ships as a merchant seaman to learn about life on the windswept North Sea. In Nieuwpoort Hansen assembled a body of paintings of ships and the sea and a group of etchings dedicated to the same subject. In a sign that his art had reached maturity, his marine painting “Maree Basse” was exhibited at the Royal Salon in Brussels in 1910. In 1912, after six years abroad and with a wealth of hard-won life-experience under his belt and a package of paintings under his arm, Hansen returned to San Francisco. His collection of paintings from the Belgian coast was impressive enough that he was given the first of several exhibitions at Helgensen Galley in San Francisco, and his efforts were well received. Hansen painted in Monterey that same year and for a brief time he taught at the University of California at Berkley for a brief time. Looking for an American version of the art colony at Nieuwpoort, he moved to Monterey in 1913 and began teaching private classes there. Hansen’s classes for the California School of Fine Arts were popular and he was teacher and mentor to members of the more modern Society of Six painters. His first house in Monterey was on Pacific, but soon he built a fine Spanish-style home and studio on Eldorado Street that he lived in for the rest of his life. By the time Hansen settled there, Monterey was no longer the sleepy town that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about almost forty years earlier. Now it was a busy industrial port that hummed with activity. There were hundreds of boats, crewed by Portuguese, Sicilian and Japanese fishermen. The sardine industry was dominant and the boats brought in tremendous hauls that were canned right on the wharf. The already long wharf, lined with noisy canneries, was expanded in 1916, a few years after the artist arrived. There were hundreds of Japanese fishermen who crewed salmon trawlers, for in that era the fisheries off Monterey were still well stocked with schools of the aggressive but delicious fish. Hansen got to know the local fisherman and spent his days sketching along the pier and coast and as he did, his style gradually became more expressive. In most of his works Hansen painted these rugged men who fished off the California coast, usually depicting them in their foul weather gear, silhouetted against the sea. His colors could be cool, with deep blues and violets, sometimes highlighted with touches of intense red. Hansen’s figures were never portraits of individual fishermen like the masculine portraits of mariners that Charles Hawthorne (1872-1930) was painting on the east coast. Instead, they were archetypes – heroic men of the sea, for the Monterey painter saw something dramatic and romantic in the lives of the fishermen. After a few years the artist had built a body of work of the men and boats of the Monterey Peninsula. In 1915, Hansen’s work was shown at the San Francisco World’s Fair, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. He had two paintings selected, one titled “The Belated Boat” and the other “At the Breakfast Table.” Hansen also exhibited six of his etchings at the “PPIE” (as the fair is abbreviated) and he was awarded two silver medals. He became a stalwart member of the San Francisco Art Association, exhibited across the bay at the Oakland Gallery and even sent his work east to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. In 1918 Hansen came to know the marine painter William Ritschel, who became a friend and mentor. Clearly the veteran painter saw something heart-felt and original in the young man’s work, even though it was decidedly more modern in concept and execution than his own. Nevertheless, the older artist was instrumental in helping Hansen exhibit his work in New York. After William Ritschel’s death, Hansen returned the favor and wrote an appreciative essay for the memorial exhibition held in Carmel. By the 1920s, Hansen was one of the Monterey Peninsula’s most respected painters and he became deeply involved with the artistic life of the region. In 1922 he married Frances Rives (1890-1968), a former student who had come to Monterey to study with E. Charlton Fortune. Wendelborg Hansen, their only child, was born a few years later. During the ’20s Hansen sent paintings south to the exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art and north to the San Francisco Art Association’s shows. In 1920 he had been invited to exhibit at the National Academy of Design and in 1925 was elected an Associate Member of that most august of all American art organizations. 1927 he was one of the earliest members of the Carmel Art Association. He was also a founding member of the Monterey History and Art Association. Copyright, 2009-2011, Jeffrey Morseburg, not to be reproduced without specific written permission of the author.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 01:28:34 +0000
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