Dispatch 09
October 2025

New Video
Discovering David Hanna: Sculpture features interviews, archival photography and ephemera related to a lesser-known aspect of his studio practice, sculpture.

Featured Artwork
“What was he doing right before he passed? He was becoming a sculptor,” says Josh Hanna, a son of the artist, in our latest video. In the early 1970s, David Hanna began to turn his attention to sculpture, working in clay with casting in bronze. Roman Athlete, 1972, is a striking production based on a mid-16th century Italian sculpture Seated Male Figure of uncertain attribution in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European Sculpture collection. Roman Athlete was Hanna’s first work in bronze with a limited edition of 10, debuting in a special installation at his second solo show in New York City that summer. The work, the invitation read, “has been hand cast in the lost wax process by Tallix Foundry.” Tallix, later Polich Tallix and purchased in 2019 by UAP remains one of the country’s premiere fine art foundries.

Message from The Trust
Our recent series of oral history interviews took us to New York City, a fitting setting to revisit David Hanna’s time there in the early 1970s. We sat with Lesley Domiano, whose partner at that time, Rick, posed for Roman Athlete. She recalls being “just mesmerized” as she watched the figure of her partner emerge from a block of clay under David’s meticulous strokes.  Lesley’s recollections and photographs are invaluable first-hand sources for the ongoing study and understanding of my father’s art and his beginnings as a sculptor. His "realistic technique and preference for figure and landscape subjects,” as the late American curator Paul Chew wrote in 1977, is on full display in Roman Athlete, a radiant, dynamic form that, for me, suggests strength, grace and vitality.

Wishing you a festive fall and holiday season.

Warmly,