Philip Hanson

Utilizing a bold palette of color and the structure of the letters themselves, Hanson
reinvents the language through its shape and therefore impacts its meaning as well.
Hanson’s adoption of this close, line by line analysis of a poem was greatly influenced
by his relationship with the New Criticism movement that proliferated mid-century
literary criticism while he was studying poetry at the University of Chicago. His
practice of diagrammatically breaking down and redeploying a poem across a network
of illuminated supports add to, rather than appropriate from, the poetry that inspires
them.

Hanson’s work is fueled by what curator Michael Rooks refers to as the “New Sincerity
ethos...a paradigm in which the pursuit of grand universal truths, like the virtues of
love, are conditioned by an innate skepticism. An ethos that searches for a truth that
it never expects to find.” The excerpts from poems such as Blake’s “The Sick Rose” and
Dickinson’s “I am nobody! Who are you?” possess this sincerity and fortitude of these
universal truths that have resonated over generations, and which Hanson is able to
externalize so aptly in his paintings.

Hanson has actively exhibited his work both nationally and internationally since the late 1960s. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial, curated by Michelle Grabner; Chicago Imagists, Karma International, Zurich, (2013); and Art in Chicago, 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1996). Prior to this, Hanson showed with the Chicago Imagists in exhibitions such as the seminal False Image at the Hyde Park Art Center (1968), as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1969 and 1972); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1969); and the Sao Paulo Biennale (1973). His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, and the Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna. Hanson (b. 1943) received his BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

For press inquiries, please contact Jeffrey Waldron at jwaldron@jamescohan.com or 212-714-9500.

For other inquiries, please contact Allison Galgiani at agalgiani@jamescohan.com or at 212-714-9500.