Duncan Hannah exhibition opening at Parker Gallery Los Angeles

19 April 2018

From April 8 until May 26 2018 Parker Gallery in Los Angeles presents a solo exhibition of paintings by Duncan Hannah. This exhibition celebrates the release of his book, Twentieth Century Boy; Notebooks of the Seventies, published by Knopf.  Where Notebooks of the Seventies chronicles the youthful indiscretions of an art student caught up in the debauchery of Downtown New York, the exhibition by contrast focuses on Hannah’s anachronistic aesthetic. A proficient painter working in a descriptive and representational style, one would expect Hannah to have been more of a fixture at the National Arts Club than Max’s Kansas City.

The exhibition opens with Drunk, a full figured self-portrait from 1976, and covers the spectrum of subjects that have become trademark Hannah: clandestine encounters, European automobiles, Art Deco cinemas, film noir, nudes, fighter planes and literary heroes.The exhibition includes one work, The Waiting (1980), from his debut solo show at the Stefanotti Gallery in 1981.

Remarkable in Hannah’s oeuvre is an unwavering commitment to a narrative stye of painting reminiscent of Edward Hopper and Walter Sickert. His canvases act a cinematic tableaux of an idyllic world where a touring car whisks Lee Remick away from a countryside picnic returning in time for a Truffaut double-feature. In Hannah’s halycon world, the mood is often tainted with a touch of intrigue. Fireflies (2012) depicts a young boy examining a glass jar, presumably containing the titular subject, yet the expression on the face of his companion gives pause. The Shipwreck Boys in Yorkshire (2006) anticipates a derring-do Hardy Boys mystery and instead delivers a seemingly innocent game of cricket. Paradise lost is found again in Duncan Hannah.

Duncan Hannah (b. 1952 in Minneapolis, MN, works and lives in Brooklyn, NY). Selected solo exhibitions include Adrift in the 20th Century, Invisible Exports, New York NY (2017), Half Gallery, New York NY (2011), Tibor de Nagy, New York, NY (1995-97), John Oulman Gallery, Minneapolis, MN (1988-98), Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, NY (1991), Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago , IL (1988-89), Modernism, San Francisco, CA (1984-2015), Semaphore Gallery New York, NY (1983-88) and Stefanotti Gallery, New York, NY (1981). Selected group exhibition include Club 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village 1978-83, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2017), The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene 1974-84, Grey Art Gallery, New York, NY (traveling 2006), New Still Life, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (1982), New York, New Wave, Ps1, Long Island City, NY (1981) and The Times Square Show, New York, NY (1980). His work is included in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, among many others.

For more information, please http://parkergallery.com/exhibitions/duncan-hannah here, or contact Ornis A. Gallery