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Housepainter II

Duane Hanson American
1984
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Housepainter II is recognizable as a working-class American, an everyman. At the same time, he stands in the heroic stance of the classical Greek sculpture the Doryphoros, or the Spear Bearer, by Polykleitos (ca. 440 b.c.). Hanson deliberately draws on this paradox to highlight a solitary moment of physical labor as ennobled. The uncanny hyperrealism of Hanson’s painter is intended to inspire both empathy and uneasiness, suggesting a broader cultural malaise. This representation of a black man painting a wall white, dressed　in　an　old ripped　shirt with multicolored streaks of paint,　is intentionally provocative and symbolically charged, pointing critically to politically urgent issues of racial and economic inequality.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Housepainter II
  • Artist: Duane Hanson (American, 1925–1996)
  • Date: 1984
  • Medium: Bronze, polychromed in oil, mixed media, with accessories
  • Dimensions: 70 7/8 × 25 3/16 × 26 3/4 in. (180 × 64 × 68 cm)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Collection of Jean and Catherine Madar
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Estate of Duane Hanson/VAGA, New York.
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art