ARTIST:

Duane Hanson

Duane Hanson
Left to right: Young Shopper, Man on a Bench, Lady with Shopping Bags,

Life-size

Duane Hanson
Left to right: Woman with Child in Stroller, Traveller,

Life-size

Duane Hanson
Left to right: Security Guard, Flea Market Vendor,

Life-size

Duane Hanson
Tourists II, 1988
fibreglass and mixed media, with accessories
life size

Since the early 1970’s Duane Hanson has been making startlingly lifelike sculptures of middle America accomplished through a complex process of casting from live models, recreated in bronze or fibreglass resin.

Duane Hanson
Young Shopper, 1973
polyester and fibreglass, polychromed in oil, with accessories
life size

Duane Hanson concentrated on the naked fact of the subject, an astonishingly persuasive counterfeit of another human being as a fully realised physical presence. When describing this sculpture Duane Hanson said: ‘I like the physical burdens this woman carries. She is weighted down by all of her shopping bags and purchases, and she has become almost a bag herself. She carries physical burdens – the burdens of life, of everyday living. But initially, it’s quite a funny sculpture’.

Duane Hanson
Sunbather with Black Bikini, 1989
Polychromed bronze, with accessories
Life size

Duane Hanson’s sculptures are like minutes from a slice of life, frozen for pause and contemplation. And unlike looking at real people you get the chance for an up-close, unblinking gawp.

Duane Hanson
Queenie II, 1988
polychromed bronze, with accessories
life size

Queenie can be understood on one level as the personification of all those resigned-looking women who drag their bodies around in pursuit of the mess created by the rest of us. But we are made to confront the fact that such women, who are usually invisible and ignored, are not just faceless domestics.

Duane Hanson
Man on a Bench, 1997
vinyl, polychromed in oil, with accessories
life size

Duane Hanson’s hyper-real Old Man on a Bench is in a peculiarly modern predicament of drifting or simply existing, merely marking time on his way from birth to death.

Duane Hanson
Woman with Child in a Stroller, 1985
autobody filler, polyvinyl and mixed media, with accessories
life size

The insistence on the irreplaceability of each person, and on the dignity to be accorded to those who are usually overlooked or spurned as ordinary are central to Duane Hanson’s art and humanitarian vision.

Duane Hanson
Flea Market Vendor, 1990
polychromed bronze, with accessories
life size

Duane Hanson’s sculptures of people are just too believable. Creating vignettes of real American life, he doesn’t forget a single detail. Casting his figures from live models in his studio, Duane Hanson then adorned them with every attribute of life-likeness from tiny body hairs, varicose viens, bruises, and hangnails. He hand picked their clothes from second hand shops, and accessorised them accordingly.

Duane Hanson
Jogger, 1983
acetate and mixed
media,

The truly radical nature of Duane Hanson’s procedures – by which casts were made directly from the body and head of a particular but anonymous person with exception of Jogger a doctor friend of Duane Hanson who volunteered for the mold-making sessions, and whose body type fit perfectly with his idea. Reassembled into a complete figure, ilusionistically painted for the most convincing skin-tones and finally dressed in actual clothes. Duane Hanson judged the success of his work insofar as it obscured all traces of his subtle interventions so the figure appeared to be nothing more than a three dimensional replica of an actual person.

Duane Hanson
Traveller, 1988
autobody filler, fibreglass and mixed media with accessories
life size

The Traveller snoozes sunburned and hung over in a pile of cheap luggage waiting exhaustedly for a connecting flight home.

Duane Hanson
Delivery Man, 1980
Polyvinyl poly-chromed in oil, with accessories
Life size

Duane Hanson
Security Guard, 1990
polychromed bronze, with accessories
Life size

Duane Hanson
Lady with shopping bags, 1972
polyester resin and fibreglass, polychromed in oil, with accessories
Life size

Duane Hanson
Old couple on a bench, 1994
autobody filler, fibreglass and mixed media, with accessories
Life size

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