Deborah Hanson Murphy

Deborah Hanson Murphy was a painter whose meticulous work consists of a series of paintings she called “Variations”. These works are both understated and rigorous in their composition and approach to colour, elaborating over many years a series of forms, repeated serially throughout her still lives to the point where they no longer are able to remain still; the floor recedes from under the objects, suspended in space, the forms shed their names and take on other qualities. Hanson Murphy (b. Stockton, USA, 1931; d. Paris, France, 2018) was largely overlooked as a painter during her lifetime. She graduated in 1953 from Stanford University and was a student at the Art Students League in New York from 1957 to 1958. She worked mostly in Paris, her adopted city, where she lived from 1968 until her death.