Erik Riisager Hansen

Erik Riisager Hansen was born in 1927 and was largely influenced by the 1930s. The period of the 1930s is epitomised by the clashing of a number of political ideologies, including Marxist Socialism, Capitalist Democracy, and the Totalitarianism of both Communism and Fascism. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s government needed urgent funds to implement the rapid industrialisation demanded by the first Five Year Plan. It initiated a secret proposal to sell off treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), including a primary list of two hundred and fifty irreplaceable paintings by the Old Masters, a number of which ended up in the collection of Andrew Mellon via the New York based art dealing company, Knoedler.