Own a distinctive work that brings together two enduring symbols of Robert Burns’s legacy.
Harold E Hansen’s Auld Brig o’ Doon is an original acrylic painting created in 2008, pairing the historic Brig o’ Doon—celebrated as the setting for the final verse of Burns’ Tam o’ Shanter—with an overlaid figure drawn from the marble monument in the mausoleum where Burns is buried. The painting was done after the artist visited these sites and made for the cover of the program of the 151st Robert Burns Banquet, of the Saint Andrew’s Society of Milwaukee.
The bridge in the painting is the Brig o’ Doon, at Ayr, built in 1460, and made famous by Robert Burns in his poem Tam o’ Shanter (1790). The poem actually led to the saving of the bridge when locals wanted it torn down due to a new bridge to be built nearby in 1812.
Burns died in 1796, but the Reverend Hamilton Paul wrote a petition in the form of a poem pleading for the saving of the bridge, a poem with references not only to Burns but also to the poem Tam o’ Shanter.
The layered composition gives the landscape a memorable sense of history and literary connection, while the artist’s signature and accompanying handwritten identification document the work. With frame, painting is 20 x 26”. The painting is triple-matted and behind glass in a wood frame.
Bidding opens at $500.
Born in 1943 in Rush County, Indiana, Hansen studied at the Herron School of Art and has painted professionally since 1969, adding stone lithography to his practice in 1981. Inspired by artists including Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, Stow Wengenroth, Eric Sloane, and Peter Hurd, he creates work from places and subjects he has personally encountered. Hansen has earned numerous honors in international miniature competitions and Watercolor Wisconsin exhibitions, and he is a member of the Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society of Washington, D.C., and the Wisconsin Watercolor Society. Auld Brig o’ Doon offers collectors an opportunity to acquire an original work by an established, award-winning artist.