St. Anthony Pleasure Park

Hanson’s etching depicts a landscape of fantastic, monstrous structures and plant-like forms. Created when Hanson was fully engaged with printmaking, this work was likely inspired by Riverview, a now-defunct Chicago amusement park. In the image Hanson riffed on the graphic images often used by amusement parks to entice customers while referencing the story of Saint Anthony, an Egyptian monk who was said to have been visited by demons in the desert. The artist, who received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1968, carefully hand-colored this etching, providing a luminous dimension.