‘‘I don’t have any formal training as an artist’’
Fridtjof Hanson has gone from repairing bodies to making them. He tells about his work and his inspirations.
For years, Fridtjof Hanson used a scalpel to cut into human bodies. Now, he builds them from scratch using the skeleton as his starting point.
When he retired from his duties as a general and vascular surgeon in 2001, Hanson soon fell in love with another passion - sculpting.
His body of work will be a familiar sight for most people living in Taranaki.
His hands shaped and moulded the Peter Snell statue in Opunake, the life-sized likeness of Frederic Carrington in New Plymouth’s Robe St garden and the memorial to Lieutenant Colonel William Malone on Stratford’s Broadway.
For Hanson, the human body will always be the ultimate ‘‘masterpiece’’.
Having developed an appreciation of the human anatomy through his medical training and surgical career, it was another textbook he used to find out about sculpture.
His bible has been the book
by Bruno Lucchesi, which details the techniques and methods of building a figure from the inside out.
‘‘I don’t have any formal training as an artist at all,’’ he says.
It all starts with the skeleton. The muscles come next, showing either the male and female anatomy and then the sculpture is finished off by moulding the figure, face and finer details.
Once the clay figure is finished, Marton man Ross Wilson and his assistant travel to Hanson’s home and make plaster casts of different parts of the figure.
Once these are checked for accuracy by Hanson, they are recast and completely covered, inside and out, with a fireproof coating.
This allows for the molten bronze - which Hanson says is the colour of the sun - to be poured in through funnels, which then incinerates the wax.
‘‘It remains for the fireproof covering to be removed and the multiple bronzes to be welded together and erected on a suitable frame,’’ Hanson says.
Over the years, the 76-year-old has adapted his own techniques to help mitigate against any problems which arise while still maintaining the integrity and stability of the piece.
He also has to make sure the figure doesn’t dry out, so is fastidious about ensuring it’s kept well covered with damp towels when he’s finished working on it for the day.
A home-made plastic cover, which can be hoisted up and down, was also installed by Hanson in his workshop to use as additional protection for his projects.
Hanson was first inspired by the works of celebrated Whanganui sculptor Joan Bullock Morrell, who has immortalised the likes of James K Baxter, Prince Charles and Sir Peter Blake.
‘‘She showed me into this studio where there were more than 50 really good bronzes,’’ he says.
He was particularly taken by her rendition of Blake, a man Hanson admired deeply.
‘She just captured his smile beautifully.’’
When Hanson noticed Peter Snell was absent from the collection, Morrell suggested he fill the void and have a go at sculpting a likeness of the famous runner himself.
‘‘I said ‘I bloody will’. And I did,’’ he says. ‘‘That was really my beginning with sculpture.’’
The Snell sculpture was eventually unveiled in Opunake in May 2007 by the real McCoy and was the first in a series of works by the father-of-two which are now on public display.
While human beings have been a big focus for Hanson, animals have also been immortalised, including a smaller scale version of the legendary galloper Kiwi, which came from behind to score victory in the 1983 running of the Melbourne Cup.
Within his Cowling Rd workshop stands Hanson’s latest project, commissioned by the Returned Services Association.
Financial assistance for the memorial was granted by New Plymouth District Council’s community services and programmes fund, which will also cover future maintenance.
The statue is already taking shape, with a rudimentary outline of the clay figure on show, including the nub of a nose and two splayed feet, all fashioned upon a frame made out of chicken wire and metal rods.
The plasticine maquette stationed on a nearby table is the best indicator of what the final product will look like, meant as a permanent reminder to mark 100 years since World War I ended.
The memorial will feature a lone soldier, dressed in Taranaki Regimental uniform, who is resting on his rifle.
When it’s finished, the life-size figure will be cast in bronze before it is secured near the Italian made Pack Howitzer which sits across from the Cenotaph on Regina Pl in New Plymouth.
It is set to be unveiled on November 11, 2018 at 11am, 100 years to the exact time the war came to an end.
Hanson says the statue’s site is fitting as it is above the location of the city’s old railway station, from where many men and woman left, bound for war.
With a clear view from the walkway, the statue will look out across the Tasman Sea, echoing the Anzac spirit which links New Zealand and Australia. ‘‘It’s a brilliant spot,’’ Hanson says.
War has been a theme throughout his life. Hanson describes himself as a ‘‘war baby’’ after his parents emigrated to Australia in 1942.
‘‘My parents were pre-war refugees from Holland,’’ he says.
In his role as a surgeon, he also spent a stint working for the Red Cross overseas, after being stationed in Pakistan.
In researching Lieutenant Colonel William Malone, whom he replicated in bronze in 2011, Hanson read a lot of background about the man.
The sculptor likes to get a sense of what the person was like in real life before he embarks on creating a bronze replica. ‘‘I’m very interested in biographies.’’
Along with Malone’s heroics on the battlefields of Gallipoli and Chanuk Bair - where he died in 1915, he was also highly regarded by people as a solicitor, farmer and neighbour.
‘‘He left such a big legacy,’’ Hanson says.
As a surgeon he helped to save lives, so the responsibility of making people immortal is not lost on Hanson.
Hanson created the Peter Snell statue in Opunake, the Frederic Carrington likeness in New Plymouth, and Stratford's memorial to Lieutenant Colonel William Malone.