Theodore ("Theo") R. Hancock (November 16, 1923 – July 28, 1989) was a British-born, naturalised American artist, working chiefly in

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

Early life

Hancock was born in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (, abbreviated ''Bucks'') is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-east, Hertfordshir ...

, England to a military father and was educated at

Sutton Valence school Sutton Valence School (SVS) is a private school near Maidstone in southeast England. It has 560 pupils. It is a co-educational day and boarding school, boarding school. There are three senior boarding houses: Westminster, St Margaret's and Sutto ...

in the Kent Downs. After finishing school in 1942, Hancock saw war service with the British Army as a gunner subaltern in Greece and Italy. He attended

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

in 1944 and in 1948 took up a Fellowship in Art to

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in Rhode Island, New York.

Career

Described by

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

magazine as a 'brash, engaging young Briton', he exhibited widely throughout North America during his time at Brown University and thereafter, including in Boston, Manhattan, Providence, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles. He remained resident in the United States, painting in a former Methodist chapel in

New Hamburg, New York New Hamburg is a small Administrative divisions of New York#Hamlet, hamlet (and census-designated place) along the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is located in the southern ...

. Hancock mainly worked in watercolour and his art was both

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and distinguished by a strong interest in engineering and technology. He concentrated on urban landscapes, trying to capture what he called the 'visual language that technology uses to create the city environment'. His mural, ''Man and Computers'', explores the close relationship linking man and the then-new machine, with a 'web-like intimacy' between the two. He was an official artist to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and its Apollo space programme in the 1960s as part of the NASA Art Program. He later undertook commissions for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

, including journeys at sea on Polaris nuclear submarines. Hancock also held the position of Cadet Fine Arts Forum Visiting Artist at the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

for the 1979–80 academic year, during which he produced watercolours of West Point scenery. His work can be found in the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

in Washington, D.C., the

United States Navy Art Collection United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

, the

Air Force Space & Missile Museum The Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum (formerly the Air Force Space and Missile Museum) is located at Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 26, Launch Complex 26 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. It includes artifacts from the early American ...

, the

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

in Atlanta,

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a Private university, private Women's Colleges in the Southern United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergra ...

in Georgia and the University of Texas at Galveston among others. Another piece was owned by British Prime Minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

. Hancock was also known in the 1950s for having organised and supported the Harlem-based

New York Negro Ballet The New York Negro Ballet Company, also known as the Ballet Americana, was co-founded in 1954 by American choreographer Ward Flemyng and dancer Thelma Hill. Following in the tradition of the American Negro Ballet Company, which had its first per ...

troupe, who were invited to take part in the Monte Carlo Festival of Ballet in December 1957.

References

External links

Artworks in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum collection
1923 births British emigrants to the United States NASA people 1989 deaths People educated at Sutton Valence School People from Buckinghamshire (before 1965) {{US-painter-stub