H Craig Hanna

Early life and education

H. Craig Hanna was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1967. He has been drawing since his childhood. He earned his BFA from Syracuse University in 1994 and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 1996. He started doing figurative classical painting from life at that time. His teacher John Foot introduced him to the Great Masters of figurative painting, such as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Sargent and Ingres. The Metropolitan Museum of Art played an important role in the painter’s artistic education.

In 1998, Bergdorf Goodman held his first solo show in New York. Since, he has had shows in London, in Hong Kong and in Malta.

Shortlisted in 2001 and 2006 for the National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award, he was rewarded in 2001 for his work 'Carlos sitting on a clear plastic chair'.

After his first Parisian exhibition in June 2008, he chose to settle in Paris. In September 2008, Laurence Esnol Gallery opened to solely represent the works of H. Craig Hanna.

Art

The work of H. Craig Hanna continues in the tradition of Ancient Masters. His choices in terms of framing, color, composition and model root him in his time and century. His influences range from classical western painting (Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez) to masters of the 19th century (Sargent, Whistler) and of the 20th century (Klimt, Schiele, Lucian Freud). Ancient Greek sculpture is also a major source of inspiration.

His portraits convey a strong human dimension, with particular emphasis on the subject's vulnerability, mitigated by a sense of benevolence. H. Craig Hanna often chooses his models according to their distinctive intensity. Each portrait is hence an expression of the model's singularity.

Hanna's technical mastry expresses itself in many ways, from oil paint on wood or canvas to works on paper (oil pastel, pencil, charcoal…). The use of reverse plexiglas paint was a breakthrough in his work. Experimenting with the possibilities of this technique, playing with the effects of depth and transparency for instance, enabled him to explore new artistic paths.

Journalist and art critic Christopher Mooney describes his work as following: ‘While antecedents are visible in HANNA’s pictures, in both their contents and surfaces (...) HANNA pushes past these to create vital works that are brashly contemporary and unmistakably his own.’ H. Craig Hanna does so ‘by eschewing, even sabotaging, the strategies of most contemporary figurative painting: he chooses his subjects from “life” instead of photographs; he roots his formal concerns—line, color, brushstroke, scale—in painterly traditions; and, borrowing a forgotten form of outsider “folk” art—fixé sous verre in French, Hinterglasmalerei in German, “reverse-painting” in English —he inverts the usual process of painting by doing it backwards, on Plexiglas.’

Recognition and honors

In 2001, H. Craig Hanna was commended in the BP Portrait contest for his painting Carlos Sitting in a Clear Plastic Chair.

His work was exhibited at the Orangerie du Sénat in Paris in 2010 and the National Fine Art Museum in Malta in 2006.

H. Craig Hanna’s Arrangement of Dancers was acquired by the MNHA in 2015. The Museum held a retrospective of his work in March 2016.

Exhibitions