Hardy Hanson: IN THE SPRING

Opening reception: January 23, 5-7p
On view through March 31, 2026 at Michelle Thomas Fine Art Gallery + Studio

Hardy Hanson worked passionately and prolifically for 55 years, painting, sculpting, printmaking, and teaching art, generally at the same time. He found a positive synergism working in all at once and many pieces took several years to complete. This “grasshopper” approach allowed for one medium to influence another, resolving artistic dilemmas.

During the 1970s, Hanson’s focus was primarily composing detailed sculptural compositions of repeated unorthodox materials. Small yet powerful, these sculptures produce simultaneous feelings of fascination and aversion, an uneasy tension. Hardy said he chose “micro elements to address macro themes,” manipulating order to reveal the underlying chaos and darker side of human nature.

His sly titles were intellectual keys to engage and expand viewer perceptions. Towards the end of his life, Hardy probed more existential questions, his focus shifting from the world around him to the world within. His lifelong interest in the interactions of fragments of painted color culminated in this series of beautiful paintings.

Dense drifts of pointillist dots create illusory volumes of light and space, a visual ebb and flow, expressing the mysterious connection we have with our infinite cosmos. He titled these paintings his “Meditations” series.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: HARDY HANSON
February 16, 1935–January 25, 2012

Hardy Hanson was born and raised in Long Beach, California and was educated at Long Beach City College, University of California Los Angeles, and Yale University, where he studied under Josef Albers. He went on to teach at San Fernando Valley Junior College, California State University Northridge, UCLA, University of Southern California, and finally, as Professor of Art Emeritus at Porter College, University of California Santa Cruz, for 29 years. He was a core member of the UCSC Art Department.

When not in his studio, Hanson’s artistic expression took its most powerful and enduring form in the four-acre terraced garden surrounding the home he and his wife Ruth, built in Santa Cruz in 1971. He sculpted the hillsides with re-purposed broken concrete, creating terraced orchards, vegetable and rose gardens, no less intricate than his meticulous art. The daily rhythms of nature suited his artistic habits. He prefaced his artist’s statement for one of his last exhibitions with a haiku by Issa:

Climb Mount Fuji
Oh snail
But slowly, slowly

Hanson’s work is included in the following permanent collections:

Colorado Springs Fine Art Center
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
Fresno Art Museum
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
Long Beach Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Palm Springs Desert Museum, California
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Milwaukee Art Center
National Gallery of Australia
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Art

SHOP available works