Armin Hansen

Armin Hansen (1886–1957), a native of San Francisco, was a prominent American painter of the en plein air school, best known for his marine canvases. His father Herman Wendelborg Hansen was also a famous artist of the American West. The younger Hansen studied at the California School of Design in the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and in Europe. He achieved international recognition for his scenes depicting men and the sea off the northern coast of California. He was elected an Associate to the National Academy of Design in 1926 and an Academician in 1948.

He was born Armin Carl Hansen in San Francisco, California on October 23, 1886 and relocated 1891 with his family to the nearby island town of Alameda. Here his father gave young Armin his first training in drawing and watercolors. At the Mark Hopkins Institute he studied under several teachers, including the highly respected arts & crafts designer Frederick Meyer and the Tonalist painter Arthur Frank Mathews, from 1901 until his abrupt departure in the spring of 1905, when he was arrested for hazing fellow students. Two unsuccessful attempts by the San Francisco District Attorney to prosecute Hansen for causing permanent and severe bodily injury to the young artist Albert DeRome created much negative publicity. These events combined with the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire persuaded Hansen to leave his Alameda home and study in Europe. Moving to Germany, he became the student of Carlos Grethe at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and briefly studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Wishing to see the world through marine eyes, he periodically served as a deck hand between 1908 and 1912 on a number of commercial vessels, one being a Norwegian steam trawler. His prolonged visits to the art centers in Berlin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Bruges during his six years abroad led him to adopt many of the tenets of Modernist art. He spent a considerable amount of time at the art colony in Nieuport, Belgium.

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