Oskar J. W. Hansen (March 12, 1892 – August 31, 1971
Obituary, New York Times, September 3, 1971.) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

-born, naturalized American sculptor. He is most associated with the design of many of the sculptures on and around the Hoover Dam.''Biography of Oskar J. W. Hansen'' (pakalahau.wordpress)
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Biography

Oskar Johan Waldemar Hansen was born at Langenes in

Øksnes Øksnes is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located on the northwestern part of the large island of Langøya, which is a part of the traditional region of Vesterålen. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village ...

, Nordland, Norway. Before coming to America, he served as a merchant seaman. He later served in the United States Army. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, Hansen built a home and artists studio on property near

Ashcroft Ashcroft may refer to: Places * Ashcroft, British Columbia, a village in Canada **Ashcroft House in Bagpath, Gloucestershire, England—eponym of the Canadian village * Ashcroft, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia * Ashcroft, Colorado, ...

outside Charlottesville, Virginia.

Selected works

*''Wings of the Republic'' - among numerous examples of his sculpture in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

mode commissioned by the US

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, executed under the

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-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, supervising architect to the Bureau at Hoover Dam. *''Wings'' - installed in the lobby of the Rand Tower,

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, completed in 1929. *''Liberty'' - installed in 1957 atop a column replaced one that had been struck by lightning in 1942 at the

Yorktown, Virginia Yorktown is a census-designated place (CDP) in York County, Virginia. It is the county seat of York County, one of the eight original shires formed in colonial Virginia in 1682. Yorktown's population was 195 as of the 2010 census, while York Co ...

, Victory Monument, commemorating the 1781 victory at Yorktown and the alliance with

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that brought about the end of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

and the resulting peace with

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.Yorktown Victory Monument, Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museum
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Gallery

Related Writings

*''Beyond the Cherubim'' (1964) *''Sculptures at Hoover Dam'' (1960)

References

External links