JAMES HANSEN (1951-1997) lived in Provincetown, MA beginning in the early 1980s and worked for several summers in a studio at the Fine Arts Work Center. During his years in Provincetown, he befriended many local artists, including sculptor Paul Bowen, and painters Claude Simard and Myriam Laplante. James died in 1997 at the age of 45.

An instructor at Yale and Brandeis, he exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, the Alpha Gallery in Boston, the UFO and East End galleries in Provincetown, the Eva Cohen Gallery in Chicago and in numerous other locations across the U.S. His work is in permanent collections of the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Cantor Art Gallery, Boston, Portland State University and others. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a fellowship from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.