Artist's works included ancestor-inspired mural

Charles E. Hankin, 62, a woodworker and sculptor, died of lung cancer Monday, Sept. 13, at his home in Montgomery Township.

In 2001, he completed painting a Peaceable Kingdom mural on the side of a building at 3107 N. 10th St., near Clearfield Street.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts sponsored it "as part of a series of murals on the peaceable kingdom theme," Amy Johnston, spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

Mr. Hankin had a more intimate connection with the original than many who have worked on such murals.

He was a direct descendant of Edward Hicks (1780-1849), the Quaker who painted several versions of his Peaceable Kingdom, which showed predatory and domesticated animals together, based on the biblical prophecy of all creatures living peacefully.

From 1981 through 1999, Mr. Hankin wrote in autobiography notes, his art was in more than a dozen group, member, or juried exhibits, several at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Hankin graduated from Wissahickon High School in 1966 and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture in 1975 at what is now the University of the Arts.

In those notes, Mr. Hankin suggested that the road to fine arts training is not always a straight line.

"I had started art school wanting to design a better car than Ferrari. I was a teen that loved fast cars and the thrill of racing."

Explaining the nine years between his high school and college graduations, Mr. Hankin wrote, "I worked for a racing team and traveled as a pit crew member to Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and most of the road courses in the eastern United States.

"After graduation from college," and while working on his sculptures in his West Philadelphia apartment, "I worked at Philadelphia Art Supply and at a mold company where I designed hobby ceramics," he wrote.

"I started my own mold business and designed ceramic doll house miniatures, which were sold by a company in Reading."

His son, Edward, said Mr. Hankin had supported himself with "custom woodworking projects off and on throughout the years."

In 1984, he was a sculpture instructor at the University of the Arts.

Mr. Hankin himself was a gradual, but persistent, student.

In 1992, 17 years after he received his bachelor's degree and now in his 40s, he earned a master of fine arts degree at the New York Academy of Art.

From 1995 to 2002, he was president of the Philadelphia/Tri-State Artists Equity Association.

In 2001, he worked in the art camp and after-school art program at Montgomery County Community College. In the same decade, he taught at summer camps of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Besides his son, Mr. Hankin is survived by a brother, a sister, three grandchildren, and his partner, Judy Ringold. His wife, Mary, died in 1984.

A date for a memorial service at Plymouth Friends Meeting had not been determined.