A new exhibition will be opening this March at the Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art, showcasing the contemporary American figurative painter H. Craig Hanna.

The addition of the works of Cleveland-born H. Craig Hanna is a novelty for the MNHA, with the museum's modern art curator, Malgorzata Nowara, explaining that most often it is the oeuvres of deceased artists that are showcased. H. Craig Hanna first moved to New York in the early 1990s where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Syracuse University, before completing a Master of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts. Several years later, he met Laurence Esnol, with whom he opened the Laurence Esnol Gallery in 2008 exclusively dedicated to the works of Hanna. In 2011, he moved to Paris, first appearing in MNHA collections in 2015 with 'Arrangement of Dancers'. The latest installment at the MNHA constitutes a major retrospective of his art.

At a presentation of his pieces held on Tuesday prior to the official opening, H. Craig Hanna spokes of how he was motivated to improve the quality of his draughtmanship after admiring the works of Titian, Lotto and Preti. However, Hanna has carved out his own contemporary niche in the form of his own unique technique, first developed in 2006, involving ink and acrylic behind plexiglas.

Explaining how he came to create through new media, Hanna said: "I reached a level with the traditional medium of oil and canvas that made me feel I couldn't go any further because I wasn't being modern. It didn't represent today. I knew I wanted to have the paint look different so I experimented with different types of wood."

"Choosing to paint on plastic was a way of introducing a new look on an old subject," he continued. "There was a progression. It started with me trying on many surfaces before plastic. I started with plywood, foam...I always experimented with modern materials."

A significant proportion of Hanna's works represent figures, both in the form of models hired to set the scene or through chance encounters with interesting characters he bumped into on the street, as was the case for 'Portrait of Simon in a Vintage Suit' from 2013 (pictured below). However, he explained that "in order to fall in love with painting again" following the labour of evoking figure paintings, he likes to "meditate on a landscape", describing the process as "therapeutic" and the resulting piece as "more free, more spontaneous, not so thought out".

His fresh perspectives have certainly not gone unnoticed, with New York art critic Christopher Mooney having described Hanna's figurative painting as "brashly contemporary and unmistakably his own", created by reaffirming "the ephmeral, the fugitive and the contingent qualities of figurative painting by de-familiarising and destabilising it". As Hanna himself described, by choosing his subjects from life rather than photographs, meaning that models will often have to spend six hours posing, he is able to discern a variety of emotions that naturally fluctuate and rise to the surface.

"True characters are what come out," he stated simply. "After six hours, I know you."

The opening of Hanna's exhibition at the MNHA (Marché-aux-Poissons, L-2345, Luxembourg) will take place at 18:30 on Thursday 3 March 2016, in the presence of Minister of Culture, Xavier Bettel, and Secretary of State for Culture, Guy Arendt. The exhibition will be open from 4 March to 26 June 2016, with entry costing 7€ per adult, €8 for a Family Card (2 adults and a child) and 5€ per person for Groups of less than ten people.

A special guide of the exhibition will be held by H. Craig Hanna during the 'Midis de l'Art' at 12:30 on Thursday 24 March 2016. Entrance is free. To participate, contact midis@amisdesmusées.lu. Later that evening, curator Malgorzata Nowara will hold a lecture on his art at 18:30. Entry for this is also free. For more information, visit www.mnha.lu 

Photos by Sarah Graham