Edward Hopper

At 84 years old, Edward Hopper has this physical status:

Edward Hopper (1882-1882 – May 15, 1967), an American realist painter and printmaker, was born in July 22, 1882.

Although he is best known for his oil paintings, he was also an etching master and printer.

Both in his urban and rural settings, his spare and finely drawn renderings portrayed his personal interpretation of modern American life.

Early life

Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, New York, a yacht-building center on the Hudson River north of New York City. He was one of two children of a reasonably wealthy family. Elizabeth Griffiths Smith and Garnet Henry Hopper, a dry-goods merchant of mostly Dutch ancestry, were his parents, a dry-goods merchant. Garrett, although not as strong as his ancestor's, was incredibly helpful for his two children with a lot of support from his wife's inheritance. At the age of forty-nine, he retired. Marion and Edward's sole sister Marion attended both private and public schools. They were raised in a strict Baptist household. His father had a mild disposition, and the household was ruled by women: Hopper's mother, grandmother, sister, and maid.

In 2000, his birthplace and boyhood home were listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Edward Hopper House Art Center is now located in Edward Hopper's hometown. It's a non-profit cultural center with exhibits, lectures, performances, and special events.

Hopper, a good student in grade school, demonstrated natural talent in drawing at age five. He assimilated his father's intellectual tendencies and love of French and Russian cultures. He also illustrated his mother's artistic roots. Hopper's parents influenced his art and continued to supply him with books, instructional magazines, and illustrated books. At the age of ten, Hopper began drawing and naming his drawings. These drawings, as well as charcoal drawings of geometric shapes, include a vase, bowl, cup, and boxes. In these early works, the exhaustive investigation of light and shadow that continued throughout his career can now be found. He was drawing from nature as well as making political cartoons by his teens. He created Rowboat, his first signed oil painting in Rocky Cove, which he copied from a copy in The Art Interchange, a popular journal for amateur artists, in 1895. Both Hopper's oldest oils, the Old ice pond at Nyack, and his c.1898 painting Ships, including Bruce Crane and Edward Moran, have been found as copies of paintings by artists including Bruce Crane and Edward Moran.

Hopper's early self-portraits showed him as thin, ungraceful, and homely. Although a tall and quiet youth, his prankish sense of humor found a home in his art, often in depictions of immigrants or of women domating men in comedic situations. He mostly represented women as the figures in his paintings later in life. He aspired to be a naval architect in high school (but after graduation, he declared his desire to pursue an art career. To have a reliable source of income, Hopper's parents begged that he study commercial art. Hopper was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings in shaping his self-image and individualistic philosophy of life. "I admire him greatly, I read him over and over again," the boy continued to say.

In 1899, Hopper began art studies with a correspondence course. He enrolled in the New York School of Art and Design as the front runner of Parsons School of Design. He studied for six years, including William Merritt Chase, who taught him in oil painting. Hopper modeled his style after Chase and French Impressionist masters Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas early on. For the conservatively raised Hopper, sketching from live models was a challenge and a surprise.

Artist Robert Henri, one of his students, taught life class. Henri encouraged his students to "create a stir in the world." "It's not the subject that matters, but how you feel about it" and "Forget about art and paint pictures of what interests you in life." Henri, as well as future artists George Bellows and Rockwell Kent, were influenced by Henri's influence in this manner. He encouraged them to imbue their work with a modern spirit. Many artists in Henri's circle, including John Sloan, have joined "The Eight" -- also known as the Ashcan School of American Art. Solitary Figure in a Theater is Hopper's first living oil painting to hint at his use of interiors as a theme (c.1904). He painted hundreds of nudes, still life studies, landscapes, and portraits, as well as his self-portraits during his student years.

Hopper began working at an advertising company, where he created cover designs for trade magazines in 1905. The Hopper was brought to derive an illustration. He was bound to it by economic necessity until the mid-1920s. He briefly escaped by going to Europe, each focusing on Paris to ostensibly investigate the Paris art scene. In reality, he studied alone and was largely unaffected by the new art's latest trends. Later, he said he "didn't recall ever hearing of Picasso at all." Rembrandt's Night Watch, particularly his Night Watch, was "the most amazing thing of his life; it's past belief in its authenticity."

In a muted palette, Hopper began painting urban and architectural scenes. Then he migrated to the Impressionist palette before returning to the more mellow palette with which he was familiar. "I got over that and later things in Paris were more the kind of things I do now," Hopper later said. He spent a large portion of his time drawing street and café scenes as well as going to the theater and opera. Hopper, unlike many of his contemporaries who imitated abstract cubist experiments, was attracted to realistic art. He confessed to no European influence other than French engraver Charles Meryon, whose moody Paris scenes Hopper imitated.

Hopper rented a studio in New York City, where he had trouble defining his own style after returning from his last European tour. He returned to illustration to help himself. Hopper was coerced to bid for bids and was required to knock on the doors of magazine and agency offices to find customers. His painting sat: "It's difficult for me to decide what I want to paint." I go for months without finding it every month. It's coming slowly." Walter Tittle illustrated Hopper's depressed emotional state in sharper terms, not knowing his buddy's suffering "from prolonged unconquerable necrotia, sitting for days at a time before his easel in helpless miseries, and being unable to raise a hand to break the spell."

He was included in the exhibition of The Independents in 1912 (February 22 to March 5) but no sales were made, but he did not make any sales.

Hopper went to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to get some inspiration and create his first outdoor paintings in America in 1912. He created Squam Light, the first of many lighthouse paintings to come.

Hopper sold his first painting, Sailing (1911), to an American businessman Thomas F Vietor, which he had painted over a earlier self-portrait in 1913. Hopper was thirty-one, and although he wished his first sale would benefit others in short order, his career would not last for many years. He continued to exhibit in group shows at smaller venues, such as the MacDowell Club of New York. Hopper moved to the 3 Washington Square North apartment in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, where he would live for the remainder of his life shortly after his father's death the previous year.

He received a contract to produce some movie posters and handle publicity for a movie business the following year. Although Hopper did not like illustration, he was a lifelong devotee of both the cinema and theatre, both of whom he regarded as models for his paintings. Each style influenced his compositional techniques.

In 1915, Hopper etching brought him to a halt over his oil paintings. He had made the majority of his nearly 70 works in this medium by 1923, as well as several of Paris and New York's urban scenes. In addition to designing occasional commercial projects, he created some posters for the war effort. On visits to New England, particularly at the art colonies at Ogunquit and Monhegan Island, Hopper did some outdoor oil paintings.

His etchings became well-known in the early 1920s. In Night on the El Train (couples in silence), Evening Wind (solitary female), and The Catboat (simple nautical scene). New York Interior (1921) and New York Restaurant (1922), two of the best oil paintings of the period, were New York Interior (1921) and New York Restaurant (1922). Two of his many "window" paintings are also available: Girl at Sewing Machine and Moonlight Interior, both of which depict a figure dressed or nude outside a window of an apartment perceived as gazing out or from the perspective of view from the outside looking in.

Despite the fact that Hopper's early years were difficult, he did receive some recognition. Hopper was given the United States' highest civilian award in 1918. "Smash the Hun" was the winner of the Shipping Board's war poster. In 1917 (a one-man show at the Whitney Studio Club, the precursor to the Whitney Museum) and in 1922 (again with the Whitney Studio Club) he appeared in three exhibitions: he appeared in three shows: In 1917 with the Society of Independent Artists (a one-man exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club, which was the precursor to the Whitney Museum), and in 1922 (again with the Whitney Studio Club). Hopper received two honors in 1923: the Logan Prize from the Chicago Society of Etchers and the W. A. Bryan Prize.

Hopper's slow climb to 1929 brought him a breakthrough. During a summer painting trip in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Josephine Nivison, an artist and former pupil of Robert Henri, was recalled. They were opposites: she was short, open, gregarious, networked, and liberal, while he was tall, mysterious, shy, introverted, and conservative, and conservative. They married a year later with artist Guy Pene du Bois as their best man. "Sometimes speaking with Eddie is like dropping a rock in a well, but it doesn't thump when it hits the bottom." She delegated her career to him and spoke of his stifling life style. The majority of their lives in Cape Cod revolved around their spare walk-up apartment. She was his primary model and appeared in his career, as well as his life companion.

Six of Hopper's Gloucester watercolors were on display at the Brooklyn Museum in 1923 with Nivison's assistance. The Mansard Roof, one of them, was purchased by the museum for its permanent collection at $100. "What vitality, power, and directness!" one critic wrote about his work; the others said. "Observe what can be done with the homeliest topic." Hopper exhibited all his watercolors at a one-man show the following year and then decided to use illustration instead.

The artist had demonstrated his ability to bring his Parisian architecture to American urban and rural architecture. "Hopper loved the way these houses, with their turrets and towers, porches, and ornament casts, provided beautiful shadows," Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Carol Troyen said. He's always said that painting sunlight on the side of a house was his favorite thing.

Hopper, who died at the age of forty-one, was lauded for his contributions. He began to feel resentment over his work, then refusing to attend and awards. With his financial stability backed by steady sales, Hopper will live a long, prosperous life and continue to produce art in his personal style for four decades.

His Two on the Aisle (1927) sold for a personal record $1,500, allowing Hopper to buy a car that he used to travel to remote areas of New England. Chop Suey and Railroad Sunset were among the two products he created in 1929. Art patron Stephen Clark donated House by the Railroad (1925) to the Museum of Modern Art in the first oil painting that the museum acquired for its collection the following year. Around 1930, Hopper painted his last self-portrait in oil. Though Josephine painted several of his works, she waited for just one formal oil portrait by her husband, Jo Painting (1936).

During the Great Depression, Hopper did better than any other artists. When major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, paid thousands of dollars for his artwork in 1931, his stature soared. He made 30 paintings last year, including 13 watercolors. He appeared in the first Whitney Annual in the United States the following year, and he continued to exhibit in every annual exhibition at the museum for the remainder of his life. Hopper's first large retrospective retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933.

In 1930, the Hoppers rented a cottage in South Truro on Cape Cod. They returned every summer for the remainder of their lives, including the construction of a summer house in 1934. From there, they will move from driving trips to other places, where Hopper will have to look for new stuff to paint. The couple spent extended sojourns on Wagon Wheels Farm in South Royalton, Vermont, where Hopper painted a series of watercolors along the White River in 1937 and 1938. These scenes are atypical of Hopper's mature works, in that the majority of them are "pure" landscapes, devoid of architecture or human figures. The First Branch of the White River (1938), now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is the most well-known of Hopper's Vermont landscapes.

Hopper was extremely active in the 1930s and early 1940s, exhibiting in many important works including the New York Film (1941), Nighthawks (1942), and Morning in a City (1944). However, he went through a period of relative inactivity in the late 1940s. "I wish I could paint more." I get sick of reading and going to the movies." His health has deteriorated over the past two decades, and he had multiple prostate surgeries and other medical problems. However, he created some more significant works in the 1950s and early 1960s, including First Row Orchestra (1951), as well as Morning Sun and Hotel by a railroad, both in 1952; and Intermission in 1963.

The Edward MacDowell Medal was given by The MacDowell Colony in 1966 for his contributions to American history.

Hopper died of natural causes in his studio near Washington Square in New York City on May 15, 1967. He was buried two days later in the family's plot at Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack, New York, where his family was buried. His wife died ten months earlier and is buried with him.

He and his wife bequeathed their joint collection of more than three thousand works to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Des Moines Art Center, and the Art Institute of Chicago have two other notable paintings by Hopper.

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