Duane Hanson's Unreal Realities

While working a shift at the California Science Center, I flipped 

through a Human Body book for kids.  In this book was a

fascinating picture of a chubby shopper and her full shopping cart 

exemplifying the human body.  I had a double take when I

realize that the woman in the picture was a sculpture. 

This is where I discovered Duane Hanson. 

"Supermarket Shopper" 1970.

Hanson loved capturing the human form as early as age thirteen

with a sculpture of Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy out of wood.

"Traveler" 1988, auto body filler, fiberglass and mixed media with accessories life size

In his lifetime, (January 17 1925-January 6, 1996) this Minnesota native, made many sculptures of people, 

most depicting life as a member of America’s middle class.

He made sculptures by making a cast from a live model and creating the sculpture from mediums like bronze, vinyl , oils, fiberglass and real accessories like actual used clothes from second hand stores.

"Queenie II" 1988, polychromed bronze, with accessories life size

All of these art pieces are very life like, life size and eerily uncanny 

to real middle class tourists, workers, shoppers and middle class 

people.  Which is why I was confused first seeing the shopper in the 

book at work and thinking her to be a real person.

His sculptures create a 3-D photograph that the viewer can walk around and study the situation the 

sculptures are in. Most of the sculptures capture a moment from real life. The audience can compare those 

casual and everyday moments that the art creates; grocery shopping, waiting with your luggage at the 

airport, or taking out the garbage, to their own everyday moments in their lives.

He captured real people and what they look like. He did not cast skinny models, bringing 

the audience closer to people who look like them.  This brings appreciation back to what the average 

population of Americans look like. This is a confidence booster to anyone that is not stick thin 

or perfect looking as he includes the details on his sculptures like bruises, veins, and each tiny hair on their 

body. 

"Woman with Child in Stroller" 1985, auto-body filler, polyvinyl and mixed media, with accessories

Life size

Hanson was known for capturing human dullness of everyday events as well as humanity.  Other scenes 

depicted bodybuilders, policemen and hard hat construction workers doing what they would be doing on a 

daily basis, working and bored out of  their mind.

"Flea Market Vendor" 1990, polychromed bronze, with accessories  life size

Almost as fitting as one of his sculptures, which seem to say “that’s life”,  Hanson died in 1996

from lymphatic cancer due to toxic resin and the fumes from  his own sculpting. 

"Man on a bench" 1997-98, vinyl, polychromed in oil, with accessories life size

Hanson's art career lasted thirty years, with his popularity in the 1960’s and 1970’s.