Stephen Hannock, Oxbow for Ophelia, 2016

STEPHEN HANNOCK Oxbow for Ophelia

STEPHEN HANNOCK Oxbow for Ophelia

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40 WEST 57TH STREET N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 9 212-541-4900 M A R L B O R O U G H G A L L E R Y.C O M

I N T E RV I E W W I T H ST E P H E N H A N N O C K

BY C A R R I E R E B O R A B A R R AT T I first met Stephen Hannock in 1993, a twist of art historical fate that involved John Singleton Copley’s 1771 portrait of Margaret Kemble Gage, a brilliantly beautiful muse and Thomas Cole’s 1836 View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, better known as “The Oxbow.” On the table was an exchange of works between two museums, but fast forwarding to the present—Stephen’s favorite time as it turns out—I cannot help but think that there has always been a captivatingly mysterious female inspiration lurking behind his work. This time it’s Ophelia. He asked me to sit with him, an interview of sorts, to introduce these new works. The prolific and award-winning painter of luminous and personal landscapes reveals his tastes and influences from Shakespeare, 19th Century British and American painting, and Time itself.

As to the subject of this exhibition, in these environmentally tumultuous times, we equate flooding with destruction and loss, but your paintings evoke stories of rebirth.

The flooding in so many of my riverscapes has much more to do with the optimism one sees in the seasonal spring floods than with the tragedies of natural disasters.

The seasonal sweeping away of debris gathered over the winter is an annual event. This type of flooding has a number of cleansing ramifications; not the least of which is political.

How does Shakespeare’s Ophelia figure into your compositional narrative?

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is daughter of Polonius and sister of Laertes, perhaps to be Hamlet’s bride. Lovesick and caught in a web of deceit, she goes mad with sorrow and regret, climbs a willow tree and falls into the brook, where she is drowned. The flowers sprinkled on her watery grave are described as “sweets to the sweet,” a poetic phrase that captures precisely the beauty and restorative qualities of water.

By placing an image of Millais’ Ophelia in the context of your already flooded Oxbow landscapes, you redouble the watery circumstance for her.

Not only in the title painting (Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia) but in my Ophelia series of paintings I am remarking upon the confinement of women trapped in given a situation. Of course this can happen to anyone, but women are much more likely to be trapped in circumstances about which they are unable to speak. One might speak of these women as being under the yoke; perhaps an oxbow.

Gregory Crewdson’s Ophelia, in which she is lying in a flooded room in a suburban house, is also in sync with this notion. Lastly, this event is most reminiscent of my wife’s condition after her stroke. One of total confinement without any means of escape. A truly heartbreaking thing to observe.

Another lovely image woven into a number of works in the show is your daughter, sprawled on a stone bench, very reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World.

My in-laws installed a wonderful marble bench in a small church cemetery near their home in Western Michigan in memory of my wife Bridget. My daughter and I visit this bench every year. On one visit when Georgia was little I caught this shot of her sitting on the bench looking off into the woods. It wasn’t until I saw the photo the following year that I noticed how similar her pose on the bench was to the figure in Christina’s World. The similarity is the mystery.

Can you tell the story of the photographs of you and Bridget, evocative of D�rer’s Adam and Eve in look and when placed in the flooded river, inviting a story of trouble in Paradise.

When Bridget and I modeled for Chuck Close’s nude torso daguerreotype, we had just gotten married and our daughter was due in the next few weeks. While we were standing under the blazing strobe lights, naked as jay birds prepping for the shot, the thought of Adam and Eve never entered our minds. Chuck’s image of us is a melancholy notice of her passing, but also celebration of the life which she would soon deliver.

I was surprised to learn of your admiration for Wayne Thiebaud, who would seem to see the world through a different lens than you do. Is it cakes or landscapes or something else?

It’s a little of both, but it’s also the person who is the artist. He is an extraordinarily generous teacher, to this day, and very wise. About twenty years ago, I was complaining to him that I was really uncomfortable with the label “heir to the Hudson River School.” And that, not only did I have other influences, but I was making paintings of this and that, etc. He gave me this look while shaking his head, and said, “Hey, just be glad they’re calling you something.” Sage advice. I’ve also been taken for years by the way that Wayne builds his pictures. More easily visible with his pastels, one can see the layer upon layer in which Thiebaud constructs his compositions. This patient weaving builds images with a palpable volume that is unique among representational painters. I’m taken by the simplicity of his bakery window compositions. But it’s the bold lines of his landscapes that are exciting to me. Particularly the San Francisco pieces with their hills that drop precipitously; right off the canvas.

Can you describe your concept of time? You clearly live in the present moment, right now, and look forward to tomorrow, but your paintings look to the past. Does your concept of time involve meeting in the middle, a right now between yesterday and tomorrow, a grounded spot or that is slightly combustible?

My appreciation of time is central to the vistas with text. In fact these paintings are a celebration of the past, present, future and sometimes an interplay between them. For example, on the twelve foot Niagara piece, The Great Falls for Xu Bing, there is a 3” image of Mass MoCA director Joe Thompson talking to a gallery tour about Xu Bing’s giant Phoenix sculptures that hovered above him. I glued the jpg to the painting eleven minutes after I shot it, raced back to the studio, printed and sealed it onto the painting. Accompanying text indicates that this was a new record of time from photo to placement into one of my paintings, even though the event had still happened in the past. This immediacy interests me as I am frequently “conversing with artists” from different periods of history; with this current body of work, 19th century painters from America and England.

Finally, can you introduce the current exhibition to us in your own words?

There are three sections of the current exhibition. Each examines the moods created by moving light on moving water.

In the first section a large work, Northern City Renaissance, Luminous River Tyne, along with the smaller paintings and woodcuts appreciate both the slow movement of ships across water as well as the revival of the cities in northern England where these ships were built.

The exhibition’s second section is works inspired in part by Whistler’s rocket paintings. These compositions examine the mood created by quickly moving light. I’m particularly interested in the event of a shooting rocket just before the star burst; the anticipation of the crescendo.

The final section is a series of works inspired by my years living by the Connecticut River outside of Northampton, Massachusetts. (In fact, for 17 years I lived just down the road from the nook in this river celebrated in Thomas Cole’s masterwork, “The Oxbow”). Introducing the character of Ophelia into these works not only invokes the dramatic character herself, but it is also an appreciation of confinement endured. As well, this section is a tip of the hat to the Pre-Raphaelite painters.

Not so much for their hard-edge realism, but mainly for the way they set the stage for their stories to be told. This is a fundamental idea behind my vistas with text.

In all, this body of work embraces a long overlooked intersection of art made during the 19th century in both England and the new America.

--Carrie Rebora Barratt is Curator Emeritus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Hogsmill River Oxbow for John Everett Millais (Mass MoCA #254), 2016, graphite drawing with mixed media on panel, 12 x 16 inches; 30.48 x 40.64 cm 5

Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia 3 (Mass MoCA #261), 2016 polished mixed media on canvas, 44 x 72 inches; 111.76 x 182.88 cm

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Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia 3 (Mass MoCA #261), 2016 (detail) 8

Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia 3 (Mass MoCA #261), 2016 (detail) 9

Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia 1 (Mass MoCA #259), 2016, 5 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches; 13.97 x 16.51 cm 10

Ship at Port, Maiden Voyage (Mass MoCA #264), 2016, 48 1/4 x 40 inches; 122.55 x 101.60 cm

Flooded River with Red Maple (Mass MoCA #241), 2016 polished oil on canvas, 44 x 72 inches; 111.76 x 182.88 cm

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Waiting for Ophelia 3 (Mass MoCA #257), 2016, 10 1/2 x 16 1/4 inches; 26.67 x 41.28 cm 14

Waiting for Ophelia, Emerald Nocturne (Mass MoCA #258), 2016, 9 3/4 x 17 7/8 inches; 24.77 x 45.40 cm

Flooded Oxbow with Green Light for Betty and Agnes Mongan (Mass MoCA #265), 2016 polished mixed media on canvas, 44 x 72 inches; 111.76 x 182.88 cm

Miami Launch, January Twilight, 1994, polished oil on canvas, 8 x 6 inches; 20.32 x 15.24 cm Incendiary Nocturne: Morning Launch for Paul (Mass MoCA #248), 2016, polished oil on canvas, 8 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches; 21.38 x 13.97 cm 18

Cool Launch at Dawn, 1995, polished oil on canvas, 7 x 4 3/4 inches; 17.78 x 12.07 cm Incendiary Nocturne: Green-Gray Light (Mass MoCA #239), 2016, polished oil on canvas, 12 x 10 inches; 30.48 x 25.40 cm 19

Northern City Renaissance, Luminous River Tyne (Mass MoCA #263), 2016 polished mixed media on canvas, 44 x 72 inches; 111.76 x 182.88 cm

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ST E P H E N H A N N O C K 1951 1970

1972 1982

Born in Albany, New York Studied at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts and Hampshire College, South Amherst, Massachusetts from which he received a BA (through 1976) Apprenticed to artist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) (through 1975) Lived and worked in New York, New York (through 2003)

The artist lives and works in North Adams, Massachusetts.

2000

2002

2001

AWARDS

1999

2010

2009 1998

Honorary Doctorate, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Massachusetts Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine Academy Award: Special Visual Effects, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS

2014 2012 2010

2009

2007

2006 2005 22

Stephen Hannock: Moving Water, Fleeting Light, Marlborough Fine Art, London, England Stephen Hannock: Recent Paintings: Vistas with Text, Marlborough Gallery, New York Mt. Blanca with Ute Creek at Dawn, Frederic C. Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado (through 2012) Two Paintings, One Night, Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts Flooded Canyon, Yellowstone Dawn, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming Inaugural Exhibition, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine Northern City Renaissance, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, United Kingdom Stephen Hannock: New Work, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California Northern City Renaissance at the Berkshire Museum, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts Luminosity: Paintings by Stephen Hannock, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York Stephen Hannock: A Survey, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio Recent Vistas with Text, McKenzie Fine Art, New York, New York

1998

1997

1996 1995 1994 1993

1992 1990

1989 1988 1987 1986 1983

Stephen Hannock, The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown, Massachusetts Stephen Hannock, McKenzie Fine Art, New York, New York Stephen Hannock, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, California Meredith Long and Company, Houston, Texas Stephen Hannock: Recent Nocturnes, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California Stephen Hannock: Recent Paintings, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, Washington James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Stephen Hannock: Paintings, Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California Stephen Hannock: Nocturnes and Flooded Rivers, Kohn Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, California Illuminations, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, California Meredith Long and Company, Houston, Texas Stephen Hannock: Recent Nocturnes, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, Washington Stephen Hannock: Space and Time, Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts; traveled to Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Meredith Long and Company, Houston, Texas The Ralls Collection, Washington, DC Nocturnes: From Tuscany to Naples, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California Stephen Hannock, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York After Church, After Cole: Stephen Hannock’s Oxbow, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, New York Nocturnes and Flooded Rivers, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, California Gallery One, Toronto, Canada Recent Paintings: Stephen Hannock, Meredith Long and Company, Houston, Texas Stephen Hannock: Rockets and Flooded Rivers, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, New York Selected Works 1970-1990, Joseph V. Reed Center for the Arts, Deerfield, Massachusetts; traveled to Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, California Frank Bernarducci Gallery, New York, New York Wallace Wentworth Gallery, Washington, DC Frank Bernarducci Gallery, New York, New York B-1 Gallery, Santa Monica, California Deerfield Academy, Arts Symposium, Deerfield, Massachusetts Frank Bernarducci Gallery, New York, New York

1982

1981 1980

1979 1978

1976

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts Greenspace Gallery, New York, New York St. Georges School, Newport, Rhode Island Warberg Center, Middlesex School, Concorde, Massachusetts Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Massachusetts Northfield-Mount Herman, Northfield, Massachusetts Williston Academy, Easthampton, Massachusetts Paul Mellon Center, Wallingford, Pennsylvania Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, Massachusetts Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Smith College of Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2016

Lay of the Land, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts

Summer Group Exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, New York 2015 Summer Group Exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, New York

River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Catskill, New York and Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, New York 2012 On Hudson: Highlights from the Albany Institute of History and Art, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut

Northern City Renaissance, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom 2007 Friends from Northampton, The Harrison Gallery, Williamstown, Massachusetts

One Hundred Fifty Years in the Art Business, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York

The Story Goes, McKenzie Fine Art, New York, New York

We Are Here, Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, Massachusetts

The Art of Night: Sunrise to Sunset, Barn Gallery at

2006 2004 2003

2002

2000

1999

1998

1997

Stonover Farm, Lenox, Massachusetts Nightscapes, The Harrison Gallery, Williamston, Massachusetts Friends from New York, The Harrison Gallery, Williamston, Massachusetts Waterscapes, The Harrison Gallery, Williamston, Massachusetts Grisaille, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Rotations, Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, New York Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts The American River, Brattleboro Museum, Vermont; traveled to T.W. Wood Gallery, Vermont College, Montpelier, Vermont; Montshire Museum, Norwich, Vermont; Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Florence Griswold Museum, Lyme, Connecticut (through 2004) Fluid Flow, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Out-of-Doors, Adam Baumgold Fine Art, New York, New York Landscape 2000: Late 20th Century American Landscape Painting, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming Transcending Earth and Sky, University Art Gallery, San Diego State University, San Diego, California Landscape, Winston Wächter Fine Art, Seattle, Washington Water: A Contemporary American View, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina; traveled to Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama; and Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin (through 2000) Green Woods and Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition Since 1950, Philbrook Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; traveled to Davenport Museum of Art, Davenport, Iowa; and Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida Enduring Vision: Contemporary Painters in the Tradition of the Hudson River School, Mandeville Gallery, Union College, Schenectady, New York Master and Apprentice: Selected Works from Leonard Baskin and Stephen Hannock, Hampshire College Library Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts Remembering Beauty: American Landscapes, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, South Bend, Indiana Movements of Grace: Spirit in the American Landscape, Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, New York Landscape as Abstraction, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Derriere Garde Festival, The Kitchen, New York,

1996 1995 1993 1992

1991

1990

1989 1988 1987

1986

1985 1983

New York Choice Cuts, The Cumberland Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee Water, James Graham and Sons, New York, New York Contemporary Landscape: Topography and Imagination, James Graham & Sons, New York, New York Hollywood Collects, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Beverly Hills, California Stephen Hannock/Ralph Blakelock, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, New York Gallery Selections, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Beverly Hills, California Figurative Paintings, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Beverly Hills, California Lights in Darkness, Lintas Worldwide, New York, New York Biennial, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, New York Season’s Best, Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, New York Harmony and Discord: American Landscape Painting Today, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia Landscape on Paper, Graham Modern Gallery, New York, New York Neo-Romantic Landscape and Still-Life, Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania Luminous Painting and Sculpture, Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts American Pop Culture Today, Le Fouret Museum, Tokyo, Japan Urban Visions, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York Light, Park Avenue Atrium, New York, New York Mainly on the Plane, 55 Bleecker Gallery, New York, New York Luminous Paintings, High-Tech Exhibition Space, San Francisco, California American Cityscape, Frank Bernarducci Gallery, New York, New York Schreiber Cutler Gallery, New York, New York Major Works, Frank Bernarducci Gallery, New York, New York Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Albany Institute of History and Art, New York, New York Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio

Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Readers Digest Collection, Pleasantville, New York Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts SELECTED CATALOGUES AND MONOGRAPHS

2015 2009 2007 2002

2000 1999

1998

1996 1995 1990 1988

Rosenfeld, Jason. River Crossings: Contemporary Art Comes Home. New York: The Artist Book Foundation.

Rosenfeld, Jason et al. Stephen Hannock. New York: Hudson Hill Press.

Fahlman, Betsy. James Graham and Sons: A Century and a Half in the Art Business, 1857-2007. New York: James Graham and Sons.

Rosenfeld, Jason. Stephen Hannock. New York: McKenzie Fine Art. Williams, Mara. The American River. Brattleboro, VT: Brattleboro Museum.

Hannock, Stephen. Luminosity: The Paintings of Stephen Hannock. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Arthur, John. Green Woods and Crystal Waters, The American Landscape Tradition. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art. Garver, Thomas. Water: A Contemporary American View. Charleston, SC: Gibbes Museum of Art. Fischer, Hal. Stephen Hannock: Space and Time.

Deerfield, MA: Deerfield Academy.

Baskin, Hosea. Master and Apprentice: Selected Works from Leonard Baskin and Stephen Hannock.

Amherst, MA: Hampshire College Library Gallery.

Atkins, Robert and Hugh Davies. Stephen Hannock. New York: James Graham and Sons.

After Church, After Cole: Stephen Hannock’s Oxbow.

San Diego: Timken Museum of Art. Stephen Hannock: Rockets and Flooded Rivers. New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery.

American Pop Culture Today, Volume 2. Tokyo: U.S.S.O. Co., Ltd.

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N E W YO R K /

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© 2016 Marlborough Gallery, Inc. ISBN 978-0-89797-491-2 Cover image:

Flooded Oxbow for Ophelia 3 (Mass MoCA #261), 2016, polished mixed media on canvas, 44 x 72 inches; 11.76 x 182.88 cm

STEPHEN HANNOCK Oxbow for Ophelia October 13 - November 12, 2016

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