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HOPPER’S LIFE Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While he was most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Both in his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life. Edward Hopper sought and explored his chosen themes: the tensions between individuals (particularly men and women), the conflict between tradition
and progress in both rural and urban settings, and the moods evoked by various times of day. Influenced by the Ashcan School and taking up residence in New York City, Hopper began to paint the commonplaces of urban life with still, anonymous figures, and his compositions that evoke a sense of loneliness. His famous works include House by the Railroad (1925), Automat (1927) and the iconic Nighthawks (1942). He died on May 15, 1967, at his Washington Square home in New York City at the age of 84, and was he buried
in his hometown of Nyack. His wife died less than a year later and bequeathed both his work and hers to the Whitney Museum. Hopper’s subject matter can be divided into three main categories: the city, the small town, and the country. His city scenes were concerned not with the busy life of streets and crowds, but with the city itself as a physical organism, a huge complex of steel, stone, concrete, and glass. When one or two women do appear, they seem to embody the loneliness of so many city dwellers. Often his city
interiors at night are seen through windows, from the standpoint of an outside spectator. Light plays an essential role: sunlight and shadow on the city’s massive structures, and the varied night lights—streetlamps, store windows, lighted interiors. This interplay of lights of differing colors and intensities turns familiar scenes into pictorial dramas. This catalog deals with its major works, focusing on the feeling of loneliness that they all transmit somehow.
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HOPPER’S PLACES House by the Railroad
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Roofs of Washington Square
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Drugstore
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Night Windows
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Railroad Sunset
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Manhatan Bridge Loop
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The Lighthouse at Two Lights
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Early Sunday Morning
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Cobb’s Barn and Distant Houses
27
East Wind Over Weehawken
29
House at Dust
31
Gas
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Rooms for Tourists
35
Rooms By The Sea
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HOPPER’S PEOPLE Summer Interior
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Girl at Sewing Machine
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Sunday
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Eleven A.M.
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Automat
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Chop Suey
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Hotel Room
53
New York Movie
55
Hotel Window
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Office at Night
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Western Motel
71
Nighthawks
59
Sunlight in a Cafeteria
73
Summertime
61
A Woman in the Sun
75
Morning In a City
63
People in the Sun
77
East Wind Over Weehawken
65
Two Comedians
79
Morning sun
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HOPPER’S PLACES 1925 • 1951
ÂŤ
I believe that the great painters with their intellect as master have attempted to force this unwilling medium of paint and canvas into a record of their emotions. � Edward Hopper
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House by the Railroad Conclusion
1925
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
74 x 61 cm
Localization
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
The sunlight illuminating House by the Railroad is bright enough to cast deep shadows on the stately Victorian mansion, but not to chase away an air of sadness. The painting expresses Edward Hopper’s central theme: the alienation of modern life.
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Roofs of Washington Square Conclusion Technique
1926 watercolor
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
56 x 71 cm
Localization
Carnegie Museum of Art, PNS, USA
In Roofs of Washington Square, the sunlight captures the viewer’s eye and invests the objects with their visual power. The transparent, evocative lighting underscores the concrete reality of the chimneys; it transforms the roof into a bright stage on which the red-colored forms.
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Drugstore Conclusion
1927
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
101 x 76 cm
Localization
In Drugstore, the objects in the shop windows take on an unusual, compelling aura in the neon light or early-morning sun. And his portrayal of architecture, emphasizing the formal, disregards the human element.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
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Night Windows Conclusion
1928
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
86 x 73 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Attending to private affairs in her apartment, the anonymous woman in Night Windows is unaware of any viewer’s gaze. The painting exposes the voyeuristic of the modern city, and the contradiction it offers between access to the intimate lives of strangers and urban loneliness and isolation.
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Railroad Sunset Conclusion
1928
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
121 x 74 cm
Localization
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
The boundless horizon, with its owing strata of red-orange, purple, gold, and blue, suggests an American landscape unmarked by human achievement or failure, save for the solitary presence of the switching tower standing watch beside the railroad tracks.
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Manhattan Bridge Loop Conclusion
1928
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
152 x 88 cm
Localization
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Although Manhattan Bridge Loop, 1928 seems to be a straightforward image of an urban scene, Hopper intended it to be more. “My aim in painting,� wrote Hopper. In the 1920s Hopper created several paintings that deal with the line of buildings constituting a city block.
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The Lighthouse at Two Lights Conclusion
1929
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
109 x 74 cm
Localization
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
In the Lighthouse at Two Lights, Hopper isolates the dramatic silhouette of a lighthouse against an open expanse of blue sky. Set on a rocky promontory in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the architecture is bathed in bright sunlight offset by dark shadows.
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Early Sunday Morning Conclusion
1930
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
153 x 89 cm
Localization
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Early Sunday Morning, a painting that can either be taken as a quiet and peaceful scene of small businesses that are closed or considered a comment on the Depression. Hopper pointed out in a conversation that the word Sunday was not part of the original title.
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Cobb’s Barn and Distant Houses
Conclusion
1931
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
109 x 74 cm
Localization
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Although paintings of aging or unused barns are now regarded as nostalgic subjects for Sunday painters, Hopper’s rendition of Cobb’s barn is an original concept that deals with the difficulties of the sadness when farms throughout the country were abandoned.
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East Wind Over Weehawken Conclusion
1934
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
127 x 86 cm
Localization
Private Colection
In East Wind Over Weehawken Hopper presents a quiet street in the “cold raw weather” of a March afternoon. While the houses are all in good order, the financial woes of the town’s inhabitants are indicated by the “For Sale” sign and the unkempt lawns.
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House at Dust Conclusion
1935
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
127 x 92 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Only in his landscapes did Hopper continue, into the 1930s, to permit himself the freedom of pulling forms together into expansive units, and of letting the brushstroke stand as an autonomous pictorial element in certain passages.
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Gas Conclusion
1940
Technique
oil
Painting style
Social realism
Dimensions
102 x 67 cm
Localization
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
The highway apparently ends here, disappearing into the woods - not a promising location for a gas station. The last car seems to have passed long ago; the attendant is shutting down the pump, and soon will turn off the lights and lock up for the night.
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Rooms for Tourists Conclusion
1945
Technique
oil
Painting style
Social realism
Dimensions
107 x 76 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Rooms for Tourists, like most of Hopper’s scenic paintings, displays the importance of light as a dramatic element. The mood in pictures depends on the special character of light at different times of day, the light also creating a common basis for architectural forms.
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Rooms By The Sea Conclusion
1951
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
101 x 73 cm
Localization
Private Colection
This painting is based on the view out the back door of the studio. Titled in his record book “Rooms by the Sea. Alias The Jumping Off Place,” Hopper noted that the second title was perceived by some to have “malign overtones” and he thus deleted it.
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HOPPER’S PEOPLE 1909 • 1965
ÂŤ
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life of the artist, and his inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.� Edward Hopper
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Summer Interior Conclusion
1909
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
74 x 61 cm
Localization
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Hopper’s 1909 Summer Interior introduces the way in which he illustrates his repressed anxieties about independent women and their place in his world: his female nudes depict his fantasy in which the vulnerable female is confined within her domestic interior.
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Girl at Sewing Machine Conclusion
1921
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
61x 46cm
Localization
Fundaciรณn Colecciรณn Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
After working as a magazine illustrator for several years and travelling to Paris on various occasions, by the time he painted Girl at a Sewing Machine in 1921, Hopper had fully consolidated his style. A young woman is absorbed in working on a sewing machine by a window.
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Sunday Conclusion
1926
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
83 x 73 cm
Localization
Private Collection
The people Hopper depicted all belong to the white middle class. We search his pictures in vain for other ethnic groups, not to mention signs of racial or social tension, or of the differences between rich and poor. Hopper’s people are not involved in protests or strikes, demonstrations or meetings.
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Eleven A.M. Conclusion
1926
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
71 x 91 cm
Localization
Smithsonian Institution, WA, D.C
A woman, looking out of her apartment window. She is naked except for a pair of flats on her feet, and sits in profile. The viewer is, as always, denied any real access to the female figure’s individuality: her hair falls over her face, allowing the viewer only a glimpse of her nose.
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Automat Conclusion
1927
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
91 x 71 cm
Localization
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, USA
The painting portrays a lone woman staring into a cup of coffee in an Automat at night. The reflection of identical rows of light fixtures stretches out through the night-blackened window. Hopper’s wife, Jo, served as the model for the woman.
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Chop Suey Conclusion
1929
Technique
oil
Painting style Dimensions Localization
Social realism 96 x 81 cm
Chop Suey (1929) is a painting by Edward Hopper which portrays two women in conversation at a restaurant. According to some art scholars, one “striking detail of Chop Suey is that its female subject faces her doppelganger.
Private Collection
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Hotel Room Conclusion
1931
Technique
oil
Painting style
Social realism
Dimensions
86 x 73 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Hotel Room powerfully expresses Hopper’s interest in solitude. In this painting of ambitious scale, a masterful geometric simplicity achieves monumentality. The spare vertical and diagonal bands of color and sharp electric shadows present a concise and intense drama in the night.
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New York Movie Conclusion
1939
Technique
oil
Painting style Dimensions Localization
Social realism 102 x 82 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
A movie theater in New York, one of those elaborate mock palaces where Hollywood spirits us for a few hours into another world - in this case apparently the high mountains. his wife was a model for this painting, standing under a lamp in the hall of their apartment.
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Office at Night Conclusion
1940
Technique
oil
Painting style Dimensions Localization
Social realism 56 x 64 cm Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA
The painting depicts an office, occupied by an attractive young woman in a shortsleeved blue dress, who is standing at an open file cabinet, and a slightly older man who is perhaps in early middle age. He is dressed in a three-piece suit and is seated behind a normal desk.
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Nighthawks Conclusion
1942
Technique
oil
Painting style
Social realism
Dimensions
84 x 152 cm
Localization
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Edward Hopper said that Nighthawks was inspired by “a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet,” but the image, with its carefully constructed composition and lack of narrative, has a timeless quality that transcends its particular locale.
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Summertime Conclusion
1943
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
56 x 64 cm
Localization
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
In Summertime, 1943, Hopper documents the economic upswing caused by the war, the mood of anticipation that was beginning to affect the nation, and the new relaxed morals of youth in this country. The outfit, refers to the prosperity of the nation.
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Morning In a City Conclusion
1944
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
112 x 152 cm
Localization
Williams College Museum of Art, USA
Apart from their actual subjects, Hopper’s pictures also address the issue of perception. They include the viewer’s eye, despite the fact that the figures appear self-absorbed and unconscious of being observed. He suggests that the figures we see do not realize they are seen.
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East Wind Over Weehawken Conclusion
1947
Technique
oil
Painting style
Social realism
Dimensions
76 x 106 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Thanks to the lighting, the outside space of the veranda is transformed into an intimate place. Factors familiar from other paintings play a role here as well - an interplay between concealing and revealing, the emergence of sexual tension.
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Morning Sun Conclusion
1952
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
102 x 71 cm
Localization
Private Colection
Edward Hopper was one of the early American artists to paint the experience of human isolation in the modern city. In Morning Sun, the woman - modeled after Hopper’s wife, Jo - faces the sun impassively and seemingly lost in thought. Her visible right eye appears sightless.
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Hotel Window Conclusion
1955
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
101 x 139 cm
Localization
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Hotel Window is a classic example of Hopper’s evocative exploration of the theme of isolation in American urban life in the 20th Century. Depicting an elegantly dressed older woman seated on a navy couch in an anonymous hotel lobby staring absently out of a darkened window.
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Western Motel Conclusion
1957
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
78 x 128 cm
Localization
Private Colection
When Hopper paints a situation such as Western Motel, which is obviously raw material for a snapshot, he confers on it a dignity and a meaning that go far beyond the actual circumstances of the picture.
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Sunlight in a Cafeteria Conclusion
1958
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
102 x 152 cm
Localization
Yale University Art Gallery, USA
Hopper is a master of subtle allusion. We see a man and womam seated in a cafeteria. They are the only customers. What interests the artist is the suspenseful moment before a first tentative contact is made, the mental and emotional forcefield that can arise between two strangers.
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A Woman in the Sun Conclusion
1961
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
101 x 152 cm
Localization
Whitney Museum of American Art.
Is a bit closer to nature than the big-city woman. In fact, she has reached the borderline. Hopper has put her in a situation beyond which she cannot go. She has let the sun take possession of her. She holds a cigarette, but has forgotten to light it. She has forgotten herself.
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People in the Sun Conclusion
1963
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
152 x 101 cm
Localization
Private Colection
People in the Sun are hotel guests who have been tempted out onto the patio to bask in the sun. They seem to take no notice of the scenery around them. Apparently they do not feel warm, for none of them has taken off a jacket or sweater. Perhaps they are even freezing.
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Two Comedians Conclusion
1965
Technique
oil
Painting style
New realism
Dimensions
74 x 101 cm
Localization
Private Colection
At age eighty-three Hopper painted Two Comedians, which he intended as a personal statement, a farewell of sorts. As Jo later confirmed, the painting represented the two of them gracefully bowing out. Both were in their eighties and had been ill.
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If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint. Edward Hopper
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