A painter known for regional landscape painting in Connecticut and also in Asia, especially Thailand, Curtis Hanson (1949-2017) said: “I paint lily ponds here, I paint lotus ponds there. It is just my work.”
In Thailand, he was focused on the northeastern agricultural landscape in an area called Esan, where people live below the country’s poverty level and are unaffected by the prosperity of many persons in the cities. In these natural surroundings, undisturbed by civilization, he found many similarities to his New England subjects.
Curtis began his journey as an artist at Fort Wright College in Washington State. He studied under Charles Palmer and Stan Traft, laying a foundation for his life’s work inside the classroom and outdoors on the many fishing expeditions the three would take. His path would take him to New York City where he would inhale the essences of the Barbizon School paintings and find shelter in the work of George Inness. From New York, he moved to Boston where he studied for three years in the atelier of Ives Gammell. Gammell had trained with William Paxton, who like the other Boston painters of Paxton’s time, studied in Paris when both academic and impressionist painting styles were at their height.
Of special influence on Hanson are painters Ralph Blacklock and George Inness as well as Barbizon artists Camille Corot and Charles Daubigny.
