Last week I attended the grand reopening of Fellowship Place, “A Supportive Community Fostering Mental Health” which has its headquarters just down the street from my house in New Haven’s Dwight/Edgewood neighborhoods. I known some of the Fellowship clients and staff for as long as 25 years. On top of the fine work Fellowship Place has done by giving those with mental health issues a place to congregate, socialize and improve their job prospects, the institution has also fostered many artists. Several painters in particular have gone on to critical acclaim and prestigious gallery exhibitions.
Maurice Hansen, who died in 2000 at the age of 59, was one of Fellowship Place’s exceptional talents. He was perhaps most famous at Fellowship for a mural painted on dozens of ceiling tiles which spanned an entire room of the facility.
I was heartened, when attending a reception there last week, to see that a Shakespeare-themed mural which Maurice Hansen painted years ago has been given a place of pride in a Fellowship Place conference room. I snapped several photos of it; I was more clever, I could join them up for you, but I’ll show it here in installments instead.
Last year, Yale University exhibited dozens of paintings with Shakespeare themes, throughout several gallery spaces, as part of the schoolwide Shakespeare at Yale celebration. Here’s a painting that has delighted countless people in the city for many years. I’m so happy that it’s appreciated and has been so carefully kept up.
The lovely renovated Fellowship Place facility, by the way, sponsors a new theater program. It also has a great new art studio space.
