Paul Hansen was a perfectionist when it came to taking people’s pictures.
Instead of quickly snapping a photograph and then moving on to the next person, he would painstakingly pose each of his subjects before taking a shot. He may have angered many Chicago socialites at black-tie galas as they waited for him to press the shutter release, but they regarded the finished product as art.
Mr. Hansen, 98, died Monday, May 1, in St. Joseph Hospital of injuries from a fall.
For more than 90 years, Mr. Hansen photographed dancers, artists, socialites and Hollywood stars, along with the regular man, woman and child on the street.
“He never photographed architecture. He wasn’t interested in being a news photographer,” said Vicki Quade, a friend and caregiver. “He loved dance, movement, the human body, the human face.”
Mr. Hansen made many trips to the Art Institute with his father and fell in love with the Greek and Roman statues, Quade said. The first photos he took were of those statues, she said.
He persuaded the Art Institute to allow him to take classes for free. That convinced him that his future was in photography, Quade said.
Mr. Hansen, who was born in Chicago, lived in New York City during the 1930s and later in Los Angeles before moving back to Chicago to take care of his mother after World War II.
He photographed artists and celebrities–including artist Jose Orozco and painter Guy Pene du Bois–for magazines such as Vanity Fair and Vogue in the 1930s. His most requested photo from that time was one of actor Jimmy Durante with band leader Fred Waring and actor Jack Whiting.
Mr. Hansen’s passion, however, remained with dancers. His subjects included choreographer Martha Graham, George Balanchine and his American Ballet Company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Chicago dancers.
Mr. Hansen also photographed Chicago’s rich and famous as a free-lance photographer with Skyline newspaper.
“Each picture was like a portrait,” said Ann Gerber, a columnist with Skyline who hired Mr. Hansen to take pictures at black-tie events. “He was really finicky and crotchety when he would pose people at a black-tie. (But) the results were fantastic.”
He was a fixture at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and he could be found snapping photographs at many social events there even if he hadn’t been formally hired.
“He was a true artist, and a great credit to the field of photography,” said Danny Newman, a longtime press agent for the opera.
In the late 1980s, he spent much of his time on Broadway between Diversey Parkway and Belmont Avenue, snapping photographs of passersby with his old Rolleiflex camera and selling them for $5 or trying to sell photo sessions.
“What kept him alive was that he was forced to continue to work,” Quade said. “But he would have taken photos if he had a million dollars in his pocket.”
Plans for a memorial service are still being made.
