Featured Artist
Quick Sketch
By Steve Horvath
This article is a continuation of a series of mini biographies of members as a way of introducing ourselves to each other and to our audience outside of WWS. Please see previous profiles in this series archived on our website.
Harold E Hansen
Hartford, WI December 22, 2010 – Harold “has been drawing since he was a little kid.” His artistic linage, he says, “Is on his Dad’s side of the family.”
Unlike most kids growing up in Southern Indiana, or anywhere else for that matter, Harold was already thinking about commercial art as a career while still in high school. When he was 15 an art school consultant even suggested that he develop an idea for his signature to be placed on all of his artwork. He did just that and is still using that signature today.
At 18 years of age Harold headed off to college at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana. He liked this small school of 300 students and learned a lot to prepare him for his eventual career in art. He remembered Indianapolis as being quite an adventure for a kid who came from a small farming community.
Artists develop their craft in many ways following various avenues of creativity. This was true for Harold as well. After leaving college he traveled to Montana to work at a ranch followed by a job designing yellow page ads in Cincinnati, Ohio. By 1965 he found his way to Wisconsin and a job as a keyline artist for Philipp Lithographing in Grafton. During his 12 years at Philipp he worked his way up the creative ladder to illustrator/designer and finally as their Art Director.
Harold left Philipp to start painting full time and found this rewarding but in addition he was offered an opportunity to start an in-house art department for Icom, a software developer, later bought out by Rockwell International. This 11-year experience lasted until 2001 and gave him his first opportunity to get his feet wet in the computer world learning to use the designer’s software of choice, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Quark Express.
During all of these work experiences he was also trying the life of a gallery owner having had 5 different gallery locations in Cedarburg from 1971 until 2003. It was about this time that Harold decided to build his own home studio to his unattached garage at his home in Hartford.
He shares his home, located a handful of miles northeast of the town of Hartford, with his wife Debora. Between them they have 5 children and 11 grandchildren. He and his wife live in a 163-year-old log home, (the kids are grown and moved out), that he purchased 17 years ago. The home is nestled in the beautiful rolling countryside that that part of the state is noted for, a setting that fosters a very creative atmosphere to work in.
When I first entered his studio I saw his stone lithographer’s press on the left and storage cabinetry for supplies with lots of displayed artwork on top of the waist high cabinetry and hanging on the walls to the right.
I guess I forgot to mention that Harold is also a stone lithographer, (Stonehenge, litho 12.5 x 24.5, above), since 1981 and immerses himself equally in that printmaking endeavor as he does in water coloring. That explains why his ‘L’ shaped studio is so neat and orderly. Every lithographer I know is a ‘neat nick’, probably because of their open use of a sticky ink they use for printing. He also paints some beautiful, surprisingly small work, in oil. (Cerillos, New Mexico, oil 4 x 6, below). Harold has been painting professionally since 1969.
He creates a large variety of imagery that reflects places he has visited such as France, England, Scotland, Canada, and Ireland. He develops some very unusual compositional ideas for some of his work that revisits places he has been or things he has seen. ( Serpent Mound, W/C 23 x 33, below).
Harold and Debora are planning a trip to Copenhagen this fall where his father’s side of the family is from. He will no doubt return with some great ideas for new work.
Early in our conversation Harold was telling me about some of the deadlines that were waiting for completion. Among them was something for the St. Andrews Society. I let that pass until later, after we had finished talking about his art and such, I decided to ask him about the St. Andrews Society. “It’s a Scottish benevolent society”, he said. And he also belongs to Wisconsin Scottish, and Clan Little Society of North America. “But you’re Danish”, I said. The Scottish ancestry is on his mother’s side of the family.
To make a long story short, Harold pointed to a glass cabinet standing behind me that held various bottles of Scotch whiskey. It turns out he is quite the connoisseur having tasted, to date, 709 different Scotch whiskeys going so far as to record each tasting in a binder. There is probably another 1,300 out there to taste he indicated. Harold, apparently, has very sensitive taste buds; having been informally blind tested by others have proven him very accurate. He also conducts Scotch whisky tasting events. He thinks he would like to write a book about Scotch whiskeys and have accompanying artwork from the distilleries and Scottish landscapes.
In 1985 he published a book about Cedarburg, which focused on architectural details of the city.
During the course of our 2-hour conversation I got the strong feeling that Harold accomplishes what he sets out to do.
What: Harold E Hansen Studio
Where: 5530 Cedarview Road, Hartford, WI 53027
When: Please call before visiting
Telephone: (262) 629-4116
Email: hehstudio@alexssa.net