Book cover for Stephen Hannock: Moving Water, Fleeting Light by Stephen Hannock

Stephen Hannock

Moving Water, Fleeting Light

2026 Released
240 Pages
4-6 Hours
Ebook Available November 16, 2026
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
The Artist Book FoundationISBN 9798992169416

Coinciding with Stephen Hannock's return to phosphorescent painting, this monograph demonstrates the artist's appreciation for, and willingness to move beyond, traditional landscape artists.

Known for his atmospheric landscapes—flooded rivers, incendiary nocturnes, and expansive vistas—Stephen Hannock’s works demonstrate his keen appreciation for the quality of light that recalls the Hudson River School and the Luminist painters. While his subject matter is initially reminiscent of Europeans Caspar David Friedrich and JMW Turner, and Americans Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church, Hannock moves beyond the influence of traditional landscape artists to create works that have been described as self-portraiture.

Characterizing his work as a reinvention of familiar vistas, Hannock focuses on setting the stage for stories that he writes onto the surface of the piece. His unique process of layering paint and then polishing the surface achieves an ethereal luminosity. His remarkable murals, some dating back to the 1970s, further explore his interest in setting the stage for storytelling. This newest study, with its highest-quality reproductions, affords readers the opportunity to revisit familiar works included in Hannock's first monograph, published in 2009, as they appreciate his newest paintings that showcase his evolving techniques, expanding subject matter, and the return to his pioneering use of phosphorescent pigments illuminated under black light.

Stephen Hannock

Stephen Hannock attended Bowdoin College before studying at Smith and Hampshire Colleges. While at Smith, he was apprenticed to renowned artist Leonard Baskin, and he was also guided by groundbreaking art historians Betty and Agnes Mongan. In 1999, Hannock's paintings for the movie What Dreams May Come won the Academy Award for "Special Visual Effects."

Hannock's work can be found in public collections throughout the United States, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Boston Museum of Fine Arts; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, along with numerous other public and private collections.

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