Overland Park Unveils Poppy Sculpture Honoring Artist Jeff Hanson

A five-poppy stainless-steel sculpture, with poppies ranging from 12 to 20 feet high, now greets visitors at the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, honoring an artist who painted with putty knives because he could barely see his own canvases. The $1.1 million monument, called “Growing Kindness,” was dedicated this month by the City of Overland Park and the parents of the late Jeff Hanson, whose brief but prolific life as a philanthropic painter raised millions of dollars for charity before his death at 27.

The sculpture's five poppies range from 12 to 20 feet high and were modeled directly on Hanson's signature flower paintings, according to the Johnson County Post. It sits at the Arboretum, adjacent to the 21,000-square-foot, $23 million LongHouse Visitor Center that opened in late 2023, the outlet reports. As KSHB 41 notes, the piece is officially known as the Growing Kindness poppy garden and is described as a larger-than-life sculpture park rather than a traditional memorial. According to the City of Overland Park, the 300-acre Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens serves as an educational, recreational and cultural resource for the Kansas City region.

Hanson was born with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes tumors in the nervous system, and a brain tumor eventually impacted his eyesight, according to KSHB 41. The station reports he was known throughout the Overland Park community for his kindness and philanthropy, and that his parents, Julie and Hal Hanson, still take pictures of his artwork today.

A Family Business Built Around a Child's Vision Loss

Hanson's public life as an artist began in 2005, at age 12, while he was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Per the Johnson County Post, he sold painted watercolor notecards at a driveway stand he called “Jeff's Bistro,” raising $15,000 for the Children's Tumor Foundation. He had been diagnosed in childhood with neurofibromatosis type 1, which caused an optic nerve tumor, according to the same outlet. According to GeneReviews on the NIH's NCBI Bookshelf, the majority of optic pathway gliomas appear to regress spontaneously, while their prevalence is approximately 20% in young children.

The family converted their home basement into an assembly-line studio to keep pace with demand for his work. Hanson's father, a full-time emergency-room physician, sometimes helped, according to CBS News, which reported on the family's studio at the time.

Hanson's severe vision loss pushed him toward a signature technique: applying thick acrylics with putty knives to build heavily textured canvases that he encouraged people to physically touch, the Johnson County Post reports. KSHB 41 adds that he avoided beige tones on white backgrounds because of his low vision, favoring the high-contrast, heavily textured style that became his trademark across hundreds of floral landscape paintings, with poppies as his favorite subject.

Celebrity Collectors and a $10 Million Goal

Elton John owned two Hanson paintings, and Warren Buffett owned a Hanson painting, according to CBS News.

In December 2015, Hanson won the NASCAR Foundation's Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award. The honor included a $100,000 grant donated directly to the Children's Tumor Foundation, according to NASCAR. Neurofibromatosis type 1 is a genetic disorder.

Before he died of a brain tumor in December 2020 at age 27, Hanson had generated roughly $7 million for more than 200 charities during his lifetime, a figure KSHB 41 also cites.

Turning Paintings Into Steel

Zahner fabricated and installed the three-dimensional public monument.

City of Overland Park agenda records show that the 2012-2016 Capital Improvements Program included annual public art and annual improvements to the Arboretum/Kemper Farm, city parks and golf courses. A December 2000 City of Overland Park agenda record said the Park Improvements budget was $100,000 to obtain a major sculpture project and that public art had not historically been a capital project.

City officials involved in the project describe the sculpture as forward-looking rather than backward-facing. Julie Freijat-Babel, Overland Park's marketing communication specialist, said the sculpture carries Jeffrey's message into the future for generations to enjoy, according to KSHB 41. Julie Hanson, his mother, said simply that Jeff would be so happy about this sculpture.

Hal Hanson, Jeff's father, said his son believed every act of kindness helps create kinder communities, per KSHB 41's report. The station notes the sculpture is meant to symbolize Hanson's kind heart and to remind visitors of their own ability to overcome anything, while his parents say they hope guests who visit the poppy garden learn about Jeffrey's story and his ability to change the world through kindness.