Ejnar Hansen (painter)

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For the Danish wrestler, see Ejnar Hansen.

Ejnar Hansen
Ejnar hansen.jpg
Born1884 (1884)
Copenhagen, Denmark
DiedSeptember 26, 1965 (aged 80–81)
Pasadena, California, U.S.
OccupationPainter
Known forPaintings
Spouse(s)Helga Hansen
Children1 son, 1 daughter

Ejnar Hansen (1884 - September 26, 1965) was a Danish-born American portrait painter and art educator.[1][2] His work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Laguna Art Museum.[3][4] He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen and was an admirer of Edvard Munch. He later became a part of a group called De Tretten (The Thirteen), modernist painters who rebelled against academic painting and expressed great interest in Expressionism and Cubism. He arrived in the U.S. in 1914 and before settling in Pasadena in 1924 he lived in Michigan, Wheaton IL, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  He taught at Chouinard and Otis Art Institutes, Pomona College, John Muir College, and the Pasadena School of Fine Arts. His paintings continued to be exhibited and winning awards for portraits at the annual exhibitions of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He was particularly successful with portraiture, which he taught at numerous schools along with figure, landscape, and occasional still life painting. He also undertook “Plein air” painting trips with Maynard Dixon to Taos, New Mexico, Utah, and Denmark.

In his book "On the edge of America" Paul J Karlstorm, West Coast Regional Director of Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution states "Another figure who came to prominence in California during the depression years was Ejnar Hansen, who, after having lived in the Midwest since 1914, moved to Pasadena in 1925, where he painted startling character studies of tormented or eccentric men and world-weary young women on the edge of disintegration. These paintings, which capture much of the neurotic tension of modern life, are among the finest examples of twentieth-century portraiture."[5]

His oeuvre includes still life's, portraits, landscapes and figure compositions in oil and watercolor. His self portraits of circa 1904 and circa 1930 are notable.

His works won many awards in southern California exhibitions from 1927. All of his California-period paintings reveal Hansen as a modernist in his manipulation of form, space, and composition, and the figure paintings also demonstrate his mastery of characterization.

Member: LA AA; Pasadena Society of Artists. Exh: AIC, 1918, 1945, 1946; LACMA, 1927 (1st prize), 1941, 1954; Painters & Sculptors of LA, 1928; Calif. State

Bibliography[]

Santa Barbara, Calif., Jorgen Hansen Collection, Ejnar Hansen Papers § Arthur Miller, "Ejnar Hansen Interviewed," American Artist 14 (October 1950): 28–33, 62 § Pasadena (Calif.) Art Museum, Ejnar Hansen: Fifty Years of His Art, exh. cat., 1956, with introduction by Frode N. Dann, chronology, lists of awards, exhibitions, and collections, bibliography § Moure with Smith 1975, p. 109, with bibliography § Santa Barbara, James M. Hansen, Ejnar Hansen, 1884-1965: Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat., 1984, with introduction by James M. Hansen, lists of awards and exhibitions

References[]

  1. ^ "Hansen". Pasadena Independent. September 28, 1965. p. 22. Retrieved July 12, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Ejnar Hansen papers, 1904-1984". Archives of American Art. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  3. ^ "Ejnar Hansen". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  4. ^ "Ejnar Hansen". Laguna Art Museum. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  5. ^ "On the Edge of America". publishing.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2021-09-08.


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