Ballad of the Great Eastern, 2014

About this print, From Two Ponds Press:
"The fourth project of Two Ponds Press reflects an on-going collaboration between two longtime friends, renowned English musician Sting and American painter Stephen Hannock. In 2013, Sting released his eleventh studio album The Last Ship with songs written for a musical that premiered the following year. The musical was nominated for numerous awards, including two Tony Awards in 2015, for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations. The songs take inspiration from the closing of the shipyards in and around the historic shipbuilding town of Wallsend, where Sting grew up. Inspired by the lyrics, which mirrored themes he too had been exploring in his work, Hannock returned to his Baskin-informed roots to create the woodcuts that pair with Sting’s lyrics in Two Ponds’ The Last Ship, a portfolio that engages all the senses in its content, texture, color, and size.

When celebrated American painter Stephen Hannock attended Bowdoin College, he participated in the 12-College Exchange Program which found him at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in the 1970s, where he caught the eye of Leonard Baskin with whom he apprenticed for several years creating anatomical drawings, woodcuts, sculptures, and paintings. Hannock refers to his apprenticeship with Baskin as “the ultimate art school.”"

A version of this print was donated by the artist to the Tribeca Art Awards in 2020, and awarded to Josef Wladyka for the film: "Manos Sucias."

About Stephen Hannock, from the Artist Book Foundation:
An American artist known for his atmospheric landscapes, Stephen Hannock (1951‒) taps into fresh insights and unique perspectives that capture light and its reflection that are reminiscent of nineteenth-century Luminist paintings merged with a very twenty-first-century approach. He studied at Bowdoin College and Smith College, before completing his BA at Hampshire College in 1976. He creates his paintings, depicting scenes of nature at once familiar and strange, with a signature technique of building up layers of paint, sanding those layers, then applying additional paint layers to be sanded in turn, ultimately achieving a refined and subtle luminosity.

His work can be found in significant public and private collections in the United States and Europe, including, among others, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York City; the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.