HAZEL HANNELL: STILL
LIFE, 1946
Hannell's watercolor
presents well the modernist approach
or
sensibility characteristic of her art. That is,
the loose and
expressive way the pigment was applied,
as well as the subtle
distortions of the forms, gives a view
as much of the artist as of
the
selected still life subjects.
Hazel Hannell (1895-2002) was a
legendary figure in Porter County, a prolific artist who lived to be
106 years old. Originally from Chicago, Hannell and her husband,
noted artist Vaino (AKA Vin) Hannell (1896-1964), moved to the
Furnessville area of Chesterton in the 1930s where they became admirers
of the Indiana Dunes and active supporters of efforts to preserve that
landscape. In 1988, the widowed
Hannell moved to Oregon to live and work with her good friend, artist
Harriet Rex Smith (b. 1921), and spent the rest of her life there.
The Brauer Museum of Art has in its permanent
collection thirteen pieces by Hannell which collectively provide an
overview of the
artist's styles and various media in which she worked. During the
course of her
long career, Hannell created oil paintings, watercolor paintings,
woodcut
prints, and ceramic vessels and sculptures. Her watercolors,
particularly of floral subjects, constitute the body of work for which
she is best known. Frank and Carol Sturdevant, valued donors to
the Brauer Museum and dedicated collectors of regional art, generously
gave to the museum in 2002 several pictures by the Hannells, including
this lovely untitled still life watercolor by Hazel from 1946.
Hannell's watercolor presents well the modernist
approach or sensibility characteristic of her art. That is, the
loose and expressive way the pigment was applied, as well as the subtle
distortions of the forms, gives a view as much of the artist as of the
selected still life subjects. Hannell as a modernist chose not to
disguise the visual qualities of the watercolor medium as passages of
color dried upon the smooth surface of the paper or interacted with
other moist color areas. Every inch of this small painting bears
tracks and traces of the artist's hand and mind at work,
allowing viewers the opportunity to relive her creative process.
The
Brauer Museum displays this piece over-matted, with the irregular edges
of the image covered to focus viewers on the still life
composition. Underneath the mat, however, the edges of the
slightly larger sheet bear traces of brown paper tape. The
presence of these tape
traces indicates that the artist secured the paper on all four sides to
a board in order for it to remain flat while the artist applied the
watercolor; papers generally buckle in a rather aesthetically
unpleasant manner when wetted. Thinking about this detail of the
tape on the edges further enables one to imagine Hannell setting up
this modest grouping of objects, preparing a watercolor sheet, and
letting her liquid medium capture through its unique vocabulary the
spirit of this tableau that fascinated her or engaged her insightful
eye.
A close inspection of the picture's surface reveals
very faint
graphite lines that the artist used to lay out her placement of the
various forms. Hannell did not merely use the watercolor to color
in the delineated objects, however; her skill as a painter shows itself
through her volumetric modeling of the objects sheerly through
color. Adding hues onto the still-moist areas of the paper
enabled her to achieve softly-blurred edges on the shadows which are
lovely to
view.
The still life items are separated from one another by thin white
lines, the white of which is actually the white of the paper;
highlights on the items also come from the unpainted paper
surface. Instead of treating the sheet simply as an arena where
pigments are arranged, Hannell painted with the paper so that the white
becomes a participating color rather than a neutral ground.
Hannell's limited palette of green, orange, yellow,
brown, and
gray visually connects the elements in the picture to the point that
viewers can see the painting abstractly with ease. Objects do not
proclaim their individual natures or identities but instead relate to
one another in a harmonious way, as if they were destined to come
together in this painterly, coloristic treatment. The green mug
is every bit as
organic in its appearance as the fruits, leaves, and flower that
surround it; perhaps this mug was a hand-built and glazed piece that
the artist herself created as an unconscious reaction to the uniformity
and impersonal perfection of so many manufactured functional
vessels.
Like the other still life items, it seems to beckon one's hand
to
hold it and
appreciate its tactile rewards, brought to the viewer's
attention by the visual textures that arise from Hannell's method of
applying the
paint and letting it speak on its own terms, in its own raw language.
I would like to share a personal experience at this
point to close my essay. When I learned of Hannell's passing, I
gave voice
to some thoughts going through my mind. No one heard me, but I
suppose I
was moved to speak aloud by the strength of my feelings. "Hazel,"
I said, "I never had the privilege of meeting you, but I thank you for
your example. Until nearly the end of your long life, you stayed
with
it. You kept working, you kept Seeing, and you inspire me to do
the
same." I intentionally capitalized the word "Seeing" here
because I mean for this word to encompass both the eyes and the
heart. A
heart-seeing enables an artist, after all, to reach across time and
share observations about a mug, a flower, and three pieces of fruit
that will stay as forever fresh as the lively surface of this small
watercolor in the Brauer Museum's collection.
© by Gregg Hertzlieb
