On December 1 Hansen will join the Centre of Fine Arts and History at the Australian National University because he wants "to promote the importance of Australian art history amongst the younger, global generation.
Hansen's career was built on a long spell with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with its strong collection of colonial works.
Hansen finished in Tasmania in 2004 and then went to Europe for a year with his wife, sculptor Heather B Swann, who had a residency in France, then came back to Melbourne.
He spent two years sitting in the State Library thinking and writing courtesy of an Australia Council Senior Fellowship (as well as doing a bit of reviewing for The Age 'Sightlines' column). The State Library's files on colonial art in particular are very strong as are the National Library's in Canberra which he, like Gerard Vaughan, who in another recent move to Canberra will also be close to.
Vaughan has been working on a major project on collectors in Melbourne following his departure from the directorship of the National Gallery to take on the demanding position as director of the National Gallery if Australia.
Sotheby's can still draw on the experience of chairman Geoffrey Smith (who left the NGV after a rift with Vaughan); Fiona Hayward who has several decades in the auction industry; and Brett Ballard who came to Sotheby's from Rex Irwin Art Dealer.
Hansen will be teaching in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs, specialising in Australian art from the colonial period till now, and supervising Honours and Higher Degree Research students. He will also be teaching in the Art History and Curatorship program.
This is not a new position but the centre is in the midst of consolidation and re-appointment.
There were four positions in Art History before Art History and Art Theory merged in January this year; Sasha Grishin retired and Elisabeth Findlay had already taken on the role of Associate Dean, Students in the College of Arts and Social Sciences.
Two new people have been appointed, with Dr Robert Wellington also helping bring numbers up .
Helen Ennis was promoted to Professor Sir William Dobell Chair of Art History last year and became Director of the new Centre in January.
"We are very excited about our team and thrilled to have David on board!", she said.
Hansen's command of engaging language will be seen in the company's latest catalogue of Australian art "He (Whiteley) turns the uncertain stance of a Whiteley nude into "an expression of the artist's finely (barely) balanced erotic sensibility."
"In his representation of women, a sweetly sensual lover's touch fascination with the curves of a woman's back, buttocks and breasts alternates with almost vicious re-shapings, truncations and occlusions.
"Whiteley traces a tension between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, between easy Matissean foreplay and Picassoesque orgasmic convulsion."
In other words she's a hot bird.
Fewer of these and the Australian Impressionists have been coming to market because they have entered public collections.
However, Sotheby's has enjoyed a good share of those that have and for which the industry is fiercely competitive.
