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Lot Essay
Arguably his most important subject, Armin Hansen depicted the sea with a unique ". . . combination of the aesthetic and the active." (A.R. White and C. Berney, Armin Hansen: The Jane and Justin Dart Collection, Monterey, California, 1993, p. 14) He captured the raw, unpredictable oceans off the coasts of Northern Europe and California in saturated color, vigorous brushstrokes and with a sense of realism and accuracy gained from first-hand experience. "It is his concern with human dignity and courage in the midst of the powers of nature and ultimately, the beauty of both, that gives Hansen's work its greatness. Its strengths remain as timeless as the dramas he depicted." (Armin Hansen: The Jane and Justin Dart Collection, p. 19)
Hansen received his earliest art instruction from his father, painter Herman Wendelborg Hansen, before enrolling at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco under Arthur Mathews. When the school was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906, he, along with many of his classmates, journeyed to Europe to continue his studies. But unlike his peers who went to the tradition art centers of London and Paris, Hansen traveled to Germany where he attended the Royal Akademie in Stuttgart. There he studied under Carlos Grethe and was influenced by Grethe's palette, his German Impressionist style and his depictions of the ocean. Hansen remained at the Academy for two years and then traveled briefly around Europe through Munich, Holland, and France before finally settling in Nieuport, Belgium. In Nieuport, Hansen's artistic interest in the sea became a reality when he signed on as a deck hand on a Norwegian steam trawler. He would spent the next four years working as a sailor on many boats on the North Sea and always carried a sketchbook with him on board in which he recorded his surroundings. Later back on land, he made finished works in oil from these sketches.
In 1912, Hansen returned to San Francisco and four years later he moved to Monterey where he continued to explore imagery depicting the ocean and the various activities associated with it, particularly Monterey's active sardine industry. "From the piers and docks and wharves, and from the sand beaches and rocky coves Hansen viewed men and their struggle with the sea from countless angles, continuously refining his material over the years, exhibiting up and down the West Coast and occasionally in New York." (R.L. Westphal et al, Plein Air Painters of California: The North, Irvine, California, 1986, p. 89)
In The Afterdeck, Hansen captures a moment in the active and often dramatic daily life on a fishing boat. Hansen focuses the viewer's attention on his carefully observed details of the boat from the riggings and mast to each sailor exactingly captured at work, and he places the scene in context by leaving glimpses of the vast and wild sea in the background. His choice to compose the scene with a virtually vacant immediate foreground and crowded middle ground gives the viewer a sense of the tight, crowded, limited space in which the sailors worked. In this foreshortened composition, Hansen represents the sailors as heroic figures. As embodied in The Afterdeck, "the combination of broad brushstrokes, technical excellence, and exciting color remained hallmarks of his work" (Armin Hansen: The Jane and Justin Dart Collection, p. 15)
Hansen received his earliest art instruction from his father, painter Herman Wendelborg Hansen, before enrolling at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco under Arthur Mathews. When the school was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906, he, along with many of his classmates, journeyed to Europe to continue his studies. But unlike his peers who went to the tradition art centers of London and Paris, Hansen traveled to Germany where he attended the Royal Akademie in Stuttgart. There he studied under Carlos Grethe and was influenced by Grethe's palette, his German Impressionist style and his depictions of the ocean. Hansen remained at the Academy for two years and then traveled briefly around Europe through Munich, Holland, and France before finally settling in Nieuport, Belgium. In Nieuport, Hansen's artistic interest in the sea became a reality when he signed on as a deck hand on a Norwegian steam trawler. He would spent the next four years working as a sailor on many boats on the North Sea and always carried a sketchbook with him on board in which he recorded his surroundings. Later back on land, he made finished works in oil from these sketches.
In 1912, Hansen returned to San Francisco and four years later he moved to Monterey where he continued to explore imagery depicting the ocean and the various activities associated with it, particularly Monterey's active sardine industry. "From the piers and docks and wharves, and from the sand beaches and rocky coves Hansen viewed men and their struggle with the sea from countless angles, continuously refining his material over the years, exhibiting up and down the West Coast and occasionally in New York." (R.L. Westphal et al, Plein Air Painters of California: The North, Irvine, California, 1986, p. 89)
In The Afterdeck, Hansen captures a moment in the active and often dramatic daily life on a fishing boat. Hansen focuses the viewer's attention on his carefully observed details of the boat from the riggings and mast to each sailor exactingly captured at work, and he places the scene in context by leaving glimpses of the vast and wild sea in the background. His choice to compose the scene with a virtually vacant immediate foreground and crowded middle ground gives the viewer a sense of the tight, crowded, limited space in which the sailors worked. In this foreshortened composition, Hansen represents the sailors as heroic figures. As embodied in The Afterdeck, "the combination of broad brushstrokes, technical excellence, and exciting color remained hallmarks of his work" (Armin Hansen: The Jane and Justin Dart Collection, p. 15)