File Under: h

Tom Hebert was born in Madawaska, Maine, in 1947. He attended Manchester Community College from 1969 to 1971 and earned a B.F.A. from the University of Connecticut in 1974. His work has been shown regularly throughout New England and has been displayed in galleries around the United States and in Germany. Herbert's abstracted trompe l'oeil still-life paintings of the 1980s recall the sharp precision of Charles Sheeler's work. His earlier, mixed-media works contain industrial lumberyard materials—including firing strips and asphalt roofing shingles—that are laid into a wood construction.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Philip Hazard was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1950. He received his B.A from the University of Toledo in Film and Design and his M.F.A from Bowling Green State University in 2007. He has also studied screenwriting and film directing at the New York University Film School. In 1975 he began creating sculptures in neon, which he finds symbolic of American popular culture. Many of Hazard's sculptures combine neon forms and painted backgrounds and refer in form and imagery to the early neon signs of the 1940s and 1950s. His work has been exhibited in France, Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Hazard is also a playwright and has had two plays produced off-Broadway.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

www.philhazard.com/

Hans Hartung was born in Leipzig, Germany on September 21, 1904. He studied philosophy and art history at Leipzig University before attending the Fine Arts Academy of Dresden. He exhibited for the first time in Dresden in 1931. In 1935, Hartung was almost arrested in Nazi Germany for attempting to sell his abstract Cubist paintings, which were deemed incompatible with Nazi ideals. After losing a leg fighting with the French Foreign Legion in North Africa, Hartung was awarded French citizenship and the Croix de Guerre by the French government. His first solo exhibition was in Paris in 1947. His paintings had become monochromatic gestural paintings with long rhythmic brushstrokes, sometimes characterized as scratches. He died on December 7, 1989.

Robert Harmon, Jr., was born in 1941 in Osterville, Massachusetts and died in 2014 in East Sandwich, Massachusetts. He received an M.A. in sculpture from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1987. He showed extensively in Massachusetts after 1982 and his work is included in collections throughout the state. Harmon incorporated welded steel, carved wood, paint, tape, cloth, found objects, and cast epoxy materials into his mixed-media constructions, creating images of animals, figures or tools that blend humor and an almost primitive quality in their depiction of a spiritual quest.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Pat Hardy was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1940, and currently resides in North Berwick, Maine. She studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, received her BFA in painting from Syracuse University, and studied with John Laurent at the Ogunquit School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work is featured in numerous collections, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the University of Missouri’s Museum of Art and Archaeology, and the Georgia Museum of Art. Hardy is best known for her still life compositions, and produces work in multiple mediums, including paintings, murals, lithographs, and etchings. In addition to creating her own art, she has excelled as a conservator, a restorer of oil paintings (for Anthony Moore Painting Conservation), and as co-owner of “Fancy Painters,” which restored the painted interiors of historic buildings.

 www.pathardy.net/

Born in Portland, Oregon, in 1941, Linda Hanson earned her B.A. from California State University in 1983 and her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1986. Although primarily a painter, Hanson has also done illustration and graphic design. Her work has been exhibited at galleries and art centers in California and Washington, D.C. Hanson paints detailed images of familiar locales--the garage, the backyard, the kitchen--working in a traditional manner, with emphasis on fine rendering and light-filled space.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Stephen Hansen was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1950 and is a self-taught artist.  His prints and papier-mâché sculptures have been exhibited internationally through the United States Information Agency and in the United States at museums and galleries, including the Lakeview Museum, Peoria, Illinois, the Byer Museum of the Arts, Evanston, Illinois, the Smith-Andersen Gallery, Palo Alto, California, and the Zenith Gallery, Washington, D.C.  His work is included in numerous corporate collections, including that of Herman Miller, Inc., and private collections.  Hansen’s humorous, gently satirical sculptures of “Everyman” show the figure engaged in all sorts of routine activities –working around the house, talking on the telephone, leaning against a ledge.  His often life-size figures seem to conspire with the viewer in good-humored, prankish jokes.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

www.stephenhansen.com/