 Edward Hopper, Summer evening, 1947 Oil on Canvas, 76.7 x

 Edward Hopper, Lighthouse Hill, 1927 Oil on Canvas, 73.819

“New York Movie is a composite painting, meaning that it combines several separate sources into a single work. As she did for many of his paintings, Josephine Hopper, a famous painter in her own right for years before her marriage to Hopper, served as a muse for New York Movie, having posed under a lamp in the hall of his apartment. As with many of his other works, Hopper did not attempt to paint her with any obvious sexual appeal, as he hoped with his work to paint women with complete honesty towards their situation, both exterior and interior. Some claim that New York Movie is a counterpart to Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, with the usherette a modern representation of the waitress.⁣⁣

While the theater depicted in New York Movie is entirely designed by him, he took inspiration from the Palace Theatre (New York City), the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (at the time known as the Globe Theatre), the Republic Theater (now known as the New Victory Theater, and the Strand Theatre (Manhattan), making over fifty sketches of the theaters before he began the project. Hopper was fascinated by film, and it is said that, when experiencing creative block, he would stay at the theater all day. Despite his fascination with film, New York Movie itself depicts an isolation and melancholy, even though theaters at the time sat up to thousands. Furthermore, some critics argue that the usherette is lost in her imagination only as a result of her separation from the movie currently playing, a sleight against movie going audiences of the time period, and that her separation incurs sympathy within the viewer. Others claim that New York Movie and other paintings of city life are Hopper's ode to the warmth and endurance of the human spirit in the midst of the dehumanizing existence that is mass living. Hopper also drew inspiration from Edgar Degas—specifically Interior—in terms of the composition of the lighting as well as the overall nocturnal nature of the work.”⁣⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣⁣ New York Movie⁣⁣ 1939⁣⁣ “New York Movie is

“Many have compared Hopper’s illustration to a scene from Little Nemo in Slumberland. Little Nemo is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. He originated in an early comic strip by McCay, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, before receiving his own spin-off series, Little Nemo in Slumberland. ⁣

Little Nemo in Slumberland ran in the New York Herald from October 15, 1905, until July 23, 1911. Though there isn’t any evidence that Hopper was inspired by Little Nemo, it is certainly possible, considering the date that the illustration was created. ⁣

The 1906 piece is the earliest among Hopper's works at the Whitney Museum. Hopper was around 24 years old when he made the drawing and was just on his way to his characteristic style. A year before, Hopper began working as an illustrator for a New York City advertising agency but never really liked illustrating and longed for the freedom to paint from his imagination. Unfortunately, success was slow in coming and he was forced to earn his living as an illustrator for nearly 20 more years until his painting career took off.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Boy and Moon⁣ 1907⁣ “Many have compared

“Edward Hopper lived in New York City his entire adult life. He depicted the city not as a teeming metropolis, but as the home of isolated individuals, like this woman paused on her front steps on a hot summer day.”⁣⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣⁣ Summertime⁣⁣ 1943⁣⁣ “Edward Hopper lived in

“The painting depicts an office occupied by an attractive young woman in a short-sleeved 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 desk. The nature of the office is unclear—it could just as easily be the office of a lawyer, an accountant or of a small business.⁣

One critic writes, "Although the room is brightly lit, we sense that something strange is going on. Apart from the relationship between the two figures, the suspenseful mood arises from the circumstance that they are apparently poring over confidential material at this late hour, looking for a certain document that has yet to turn up." The man's intense concentration suggests that the matter is critical to him—he has not bothered to take off his jacket despite the fact that it is warm enough for all the windows to be open, and he seems not to have noticed the wind which has caused a document to fall to the floor.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Office at Night⁣ 1940⁣ “The painting depicts

“Edward Hopper’s lifelong enthusiasm for the sea developed when he was a boy in Nyack, New York, then a prosperous Hudson River port with an active shipyard. Years later, in 1934, he and his wife built a house and studio in South Truro, Massachusetts, where he produced a number of oil paintings and watercolors manifesting his avid interest in nautical subjects.⁣

Despite its bright palette and seemingly serene subject, Ground Swell echoes the themes of loneliness and escape typical of Hopper's oeuvre. The blue sky, sun-kissed figures, and vast rolling water strike a calm note in the picture; however, the visible disengagement of the figures from each other and their noticeable preoccupation with the bell buoy placed at the center of the canvas call into question this initial sense of serenity. The lone dark element in a sea of blues and whites, the buoy confronts the small catboat in the middle of an otherwise empty seascape. Its purpose, to emit a warning sound in advance of unseen or imminent danger, renders its presence in the picture ominous. The cirrus clouds in the blue sky—often harbingers of approaching storms—reinforce this sense of disturbance in the otherwise peaceful setting. Although Hopper resisted offering explanations of his paintings, the signs of impending danger here may also reference a more severe disturbance: during the time that Hopper worked on Ground Swell, from August to September 15, 1939, World War II broke out in Europe.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Ground Swell⁣ 1939⁣ “Edward Hopper’s

“In Cape Cod Morning, a woman looks out a bay window, riveted by something beyond the pictorial space. She is framed by tall, dark shutters and the shaded façade of the oriel window. The brilliant sunlight on the side of the house contrasts with the blue sky, trees, and golden grass that fill the right half of the canvas. The painting tells no story; instead, the woman’s tense pose creates a sense of anxious anticipation, and the bifurcated image implies a dichotomy between her interior space and the world beyond.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Cape Cod Morning⁣ 1950⁣ “In Cape Cod

“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, universal quality that transcends its particular locale. One of the best-known images of twentieth-century art, the painting depicts an all-night diner in which three customers, all lost in their own thoughts, have congregated. Hopper’s understanding of the expressive possibilities of light playing on simplified shapes gives the painting its beauty. Fluorescent lights had just come into use in the early 1940s, and the all-night diner emits an eerie glow, like a beacon on the dark street corner. Hopper eliminated any reference to an entrance, and the viewer, drawn to the light, is shut out from the scene by a seamless wedge of glass. The four anonymous and uncommunicative night owls seem as separate and remote from the viewer as they are from one another. (The red-haired woman was actually modeled by the artist’s wife, Jo.) Hopper denied that he purposefully infused this or any other of his paintings with symbols of human isolation and urban emptiness, but he acknowledged that in Nighthawks “unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.””⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Nighthawks ⁣ 1942 ⁣ “Edward Hopper said that

“Western Motel is a 1957 oil painting by the American Realist artist Edward Hopper. The work depicts a sunlight, open-plan hotel room; the painting is noted for its elegant simplicity and subtle sense of foreboding.⁣

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. By making this anonymous motel room and nondescript western landscape the subject of a painting, he sets up comparisons with other scenes that artists believed significant enough or ubiquitous enough to memorialize in art. Hopper's Western Motel, for example, serves as a very mundane twentieth-century descendant of Albert Bierstadt's nineteenth-century majestic views. It reinforces the fact that the West has been domesticated and is now framed by a picture window that is an extension of the same kind of opening found on 1950s suburban tract houses. Although the generic mountains are exotic, the motel room is familiar to any suburban dweller. The painting thus alludes to the fact that modern travel is often a collection of picture postcards and snapshots that lamely attempt to prove that one has gone outside the constraints of everyday life.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Western Motel⁣ 1957⁣ “Western Motel is a

“Although Hopper later stated that Early Sunday Morning " was almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue", his painting appears less a specific picture of New York and more an image of America. Both the barber pole on the sidewalk and the white curtains in the second-floor apartment connote the life-styles of small-time business people throughout the United States. Originally Hoper had painted a person in the second floor window, but he later decided that the architecture conveyed his feelings and consequently painted out this individual. Although one cannot tell from the signs on the storefronts what kinds of business are represented except for the barber shop, the sizes of the buildings suggest that they provided inexpensive goods and services.⁣⁣⁣

During the Depression basic industries such as steel suffered, but small, service-oriented businesses selling shoes, clothes, food, drugs, and gas stayed in business, and some even prospered: gas stations, laundries, beauty parlors, and barber shops served a growing clientele. The shops in Early Sunday Morning, which extend in a continuous line beyond the confines of the picture and reinforce the horizontal format of the canvas, emphasize the ubiquity of small-time businesses in the United States. On the upper-right corner of the picture, the dark brown passage of paint suggests the side of a large building and indicates the possible encroachment of the corporate world on this sunny block. Other shadows that are also cast from the right subtly imply that the small-time shopkeeper, the Progressives' symbol of the individual and the early nineteenth-century American ideal, is in conflict with larger, less clearly defined forces. In this manner the painting continues the Progressive ideal and obliquely refers to the shadowy realm of larger structures on the right.”⁣⁣⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣⁣⁣ Early Sunday Morning⁣⁣⁣ 1930⁣⁣ “Although

“The Metropolitan Museum acquired this painting shortly after it was completed in late October 1953. Begun in Cape Cod over the summer and finished in New York City, it was the only oil painting Hopper produced that year. Reprising one of his signature subjects—a solitary figure, physically and emotionally detached from his surroundings and other people—it was described by the artist’s wife as "the man in concrete wall.””⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Office in a Small City⁣ 1953⁣ “The

“Room In Brooklyn is one of several paintings produced by Edward Hopper which feature individuals looking out of their windows, normally with a landscape seen through the same window that they are looking out from.⁣

This type of scene reflected the mood that Hopper displayed in his models, typically thoughtful and relaxed, enjoying whichever landscape the painter had decided to include.⁣

Besides Room In Brooklyn, other paintings featuring this same set up of a model peeking out from their window, of from just outside of their homes include Western Motel, Carolina Morning, New York Office and Sunday.⁣

Hopper's best known painting, Nighthawks, repeats this approach but with several individuals sat separately around a quite bar scene.⁣

That again holds a background outside with no others around to ensure the focal point of the painting is obvious.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Room in Brooklyn ⁣ 1932⁣ “Room In Brooklyn

“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 opportunities of the modern American city, and the contradiction it offers between access to the intimate lives of strangers and urban loneliness and isolation. The city at night is a frequent subject in Hopper's work of the late 1920s and early '30s. Here, the composition of three windows allows for a dramatic setting of illuminated interior against dark night, a juxtaposition the artist identified as "a common visual sensation."”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Night Windows⁣ 1928⁣ “Attending to private

“Automat was first displayed on Valentine's Day 1927 at the opening of Hopper's second solo show, at the Rehn Galleries in New York. By April it had been sold for $1,200. The painting is today owned by the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.⁣

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. However, Hopper altered her face to make her younger (Jo was 44 in 1927). He also altered her figure; Jo was a curvy, full-figured woman, while one critic has described the woman in the painting as "'boyish' (that is, flat-chested)".⁣

As is often the case in Hopper's paintings, both the woman's circumstances and her mood are ambiguous. She is well-dressed and is wearing makeup, which could indicate either that she is on her way to or from work at a job where personal appearance is important, or that she is on her way to or from a social occasion.⁣

She has removed only one glove, which may indicate either that she is distracted, that she is in a hurry and can stop only for a moment, or simply that she has just come in from outside, and has not yet warmed up. But the latter possibility seems unlikely, for there is a small empty plate on the table, in front of her cup and saucer, suggesting that she may have eaten a snack and been sitting at this spot for some time.⁣

Hopper would make the crossed legs of a female subject the brightest spot on an otherwise dark canvas in a number of later paintings, including Compartment C, Car (1938) and Hotel Lobby (1943). The female subject of his 1931 painting Barber Shop is also in a pose similar to the woman in Automat, and the viewer's image of her is similarly bisected by a table. But the placing of the subject in a bright, populated place, at midday, makes the woman less isolated and vulnerable, and hence the viewer's gaze seems less intrusive.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣⁣ Automat⁣ 1927⁣ “Automat was first displayed

“Bistro is one of several titles given to a 1909 painting by the American artist Edward Hopper (1882–1967). It is also sometimes known as Le Bistro or The Wine Shop, even though these last two terms are not exact synonyms. The work is in the Realist style which was very popular in the early years of the 20th century, and for which Hopper was particularly known. At first glance, the painting seems to show an almost completely rural scene, with trees bending in the wind and an elegant arched bridge crossing a small river. The only apparent concession to the modern world is the line of houses just visible to the left of the wide, empty boulevard. However, a second look draws the eye to the pair of figures seated at the table in the bottom left-hand corner and reveals that this is in fact Paris. The drinkers are apparently deep in conversation, with the bottle of wine they share standing forgotten to one side. ⁣

At the time this work was produced, Hopper was still a struggling unknown, several years away from making his first sale (the 1911 painting Sailing, sold in 1913). He had made several trips to Europe and had become interested in the work of French engraver Charles Méryon, who was noted for his moodily atmospheric scenes of Parisian life. In between trips to the opera and theatre, Hopper also spent much time drawing the everyday life of the French capital. Hopper usually referred to his painting by the French name Le Bistro, probably because the word "bistro" was not yet in common use in English and he was dissatisfied with its English translation as The Wine Shop. It may also be to emphasise the sheer Frenchness of the picture's contents: with its Gallic moodiness and casual outdoor drinking, this is not a scene that could have been painted in Hopper's native United States.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣ Bistro (Le Bistro or The Wine Shop) ⁣ 1909⁣

Stairway at 48 rue de Lille Paris⁣⁣⁣

“The possession of painterly skill may not be a necessary condition to becoming an outstanding painter in oils, but when it happens to be there, it certainly counts. Hopper's natural talent for painting remains astonishing, and was evident early in his career, in the small sketch on panel that he made of the stairwell of the Baptist lodging house in the rue de Lille in Paris, where he lived for the eight months of his visit to France in 1906. It seems an unassuming little painting at first glance, but as a technical exercise in the control of colour tones and the depiction of space it is ambitious, and a tour de force. Not only does the realisation work, it also shows the overall joined-up modulation of paint that is characteristic of the French tradition.⁣⁣

It is not known for sure whether the Stairway at 48 rue de Lille, Paris was just a rainy-day painting, or if its dark colouring indicates that it was made soon after his arrival in France, in quick response to artists such as Gustave Courbet. The chiaroscuro of the stairwell, complex in this confined space seen from a bedroom doorway, makes up the perspective within the body of the paint itself, not just with its colour or its drawing. Hopper sought to catch the reflection from the stair treads, not totally successfully as yet, but the space is nevertheless forcefully convincing, and indicates the seriousness of his technical ambitions, here used in relation to a complicated architectural space.”⁣

 Edward Hopper⁣⁣⁣ Stairway at 48 rue de Lille Paris⁣⁣⁣

“Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod Evening in 1939 in Truro, a small fishing village on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The artist stated: “It is no transcription of a place, but pieced together from sketches and mental impressions of things in the vicinity. . . . The dry, blowing grass can be seen from my studio window in the late summer or autumn. In the woman I attempted to get the broad, strong-jawed face and blond hair of a Finnish type of which there are many on the Cape. The man is a dark-haired Yankee. The dog is listening to something, probably a whippoorwill [sic] or some evening sound.” According to his wife, the painting was originally to have been titled “Whippoorwill,” after the nocturnal bird known for its distinctive song.⁣

This enigmatic composition is the result of a long process of deliberation that can be traced in Hopper’s surviving preparatory drawings. Several aspects of the scene are disturbing: typical of the human protagonists of Hopper's paintings, the man and woman—presumably a couple—are self-absorbed and oblivious to each other's presence; the uncut grass and encroaching locust grove are out of character with the well-maintained house; the dog's alert stance seems a portent of some imminent danger; and the advancing darkness of evening imparts a melancholy mood. In Cape Cod Evening, Hopper presents an assemblage of carefully orchestrated dissonances that convey a generally pessimistic, skeptical attitude toward human identity and humanity’s relationship with nature.”⁣

Edward Hopper, Summer evening, 1947 Oil on Canvas, 76.7 x

Edward Hopper, Lighthouse Hill, 1927 Oil on Canvas, 73.819

Edward Hopper⁣⁣ New York Movie⁣⁣ 1939⁣⁣ “New York Movie is

Edward Hopper⁣ Boy and Moon⁣ 1907⁣ “Many have compared

Edward Hopper⁣⁣ Summertime⁣⁣ 1943⁣⁣ “Edward Hopper lived in

Edward Hopper⁣ Office at Night⁣ 1940⁣ “The painting depicts

Edward Hopper⁣ Ground Swell⁣ 1939⁣ “Edward Hopper’s

Edward Hopper⁣ Cape Cod Morning⁣ 1950⁣ “In Cape Cod

Edward Hopper⁣ Nighthawks ⁣ 1942 ⁣ “Edward Hopper said that

Edward Hopper⁣ Western Motel⁣ 1957⁣ “Western Motel is a

Edward Hopper⁣⁣⁣ Early Sunday Morning⁣⁣⁣ 1930⁣⁣ “Although

Edward Hopper⁣ Office in a Small City⁣ 1953⁣ “The

Edward Hopper⁣ Room in Brooklyn ⁣ 1932⁣ “Room In Brooklyn

Edward Hopper⁣ Night Windows⁣ 1928⁣ “Attending to private

Edward Hopper⁣⁣ Automat⁣ 1927⁣ “Automat was first displayed

Edward Hopper⁣ Bistro (Le Bistro or The Wine Shop) ⁣ 1909⁣

Edward Hopper⁣⁣⁣ Stairway at 48 rue de Lille Paris⁣⁣⁣

Edward Hopper⁣ Cape Cod Evening⁣ 1939⁣ “Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, High Noon, 1949 The Dayton Art Institute

Edward Hopper, Chop Suey, 1929 #edward #hopper

Edward Hopper, Seven A.M.,1948 Oil on Canvas, 76.7 x 101.9

Edward Hopper, Chop Suey, 1929 Private collection #edward

Edward Hopper, Haskell's House, 1924 National Gallery of

Edward Hopper, Sunlight in a Cafeteria, 1958 Oil on Canvas

Edward Hopper, Hotel by a Railroad, 1952 Hirshhorn Museum

Edward Hopper, Two on the Aisle, 1927 Oil on Canvas, 102 x

Edward Hopper, Automat, 1927 @desmoinesartcenter #edward

Edward Hopper, Western Motel, 1957 Yale University Art

Edward Hopper, Automat, 1927 Oil on Canvas, 93.3 x 113.7 cm

Edward Hopper, Methodist Church (Church Yard, Cape

Edward Hopper, Gas, 1940 Oil on Canvas, 66.7 x 102.2 cm

Edward Hopper, Sea Watchers, 1952 Private collection