Provenance
Private collection
Note: Hansen attended art school in Copenhagen in 1938 where he studied under the Danish painter Peter Rostrup Bøyesen (1882-1952) and travelled to Norway (in 1949) and France (in 1952). He married Jane Thora Nielsen Haastrup on 22nd October 1949 at the Horbelev Church in Falster.
Hansen's early works were traditional landscapes influenced heavily by the Danish landscape painter Kristen Kræsten Iversen (1886-1955). Iversen was one of the Bornholm school of painters who, inspired by the island's unique landscapes and light, developed a distinctive modernist style of landscape painting. During the 1950's and 60s Hansen's work became increasingly abstract.
Hansen exhibited extensively between 1939 and 1974 - Notable exhibitions include Oslo (1946 and 1962), Copenhagen (1959), Lund Konsthall, Art Gallery, Sweden (1959), Philadelphia Museum, USA (1967) and annaully between 1945 and 1969 (and then less frequently between 1978 and 1992), with the Danish Artists Association, Den Frie Udstilling. This is a juried exhibition held every year (since 1915) which exhibits in the Free Exhibition Building (Den Frie Udstillings) in Copenhagen. The association was originally founded in 1891 by artists protesting against the admission requirements for the Kunsthal Charlottenborg.