Ejnar Hansen - Santa Barbara Adobe - P1062

Ejnar Hansen depiction of an old Santa Barbara home, showing the summer porch. One can almost hear the house sighing in the afternoon heat and the whispers from behind the screen, over the decades. Oil on canvas, 19" x 27", with lovely gilt frame, 23" x 30". Born in Copenhagen, Denmark on Jan. 9, 1884, Born into poverty in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ejnar Hansen was raised on a dairy farm.  At age 14, he apprenticed to an interior decoration firm.  He studied at the Royal Academy of Art and an admirer of Edvard Munch, became a part of a group called "The 13," modernists painters who rebelled against academic painting and expressed great interest in Expressionism and cubism. He arrived in the U.S. in 1914 and lived in Michigan and Wheaton, IL before settling in Pasadena in 1924.  He taught at Chouinard and Otis Art Institutes, Pomona College, John Muir College, and the Pasadena School of Fine Arts.  Hansen died in Pasadena on Sept. 26, 1965. His oeuvre includes still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and figure compositions in oil and watercolor. His works won many awards in southern California exhibitions from 1927.