Josephine Hopper
Josephine Hopper was born in Manhattan, New York, United States on March 18th, 1883 and is the Painter. At the age of 84, Josephine Hopper biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 84 years old, Josephine Hopper physical status not available right now. We will update Josephine Hopper's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.
Josephine Verstille Nivison "Jo" Hopper (née Nivison; March 18, 1883 – March 6, 1968) was an American painter who studied under Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller, and won the Huntington Hartford Foundation fellowship.
She was the wife of Edward Hopper, whom she married in 1924.
Life and career
Born in Manhattan to Eldorado Nivison, a pianist and music teacher, and Mary Ann Nivison (née McGrath), Josephine was the second-born child, but her elder sibling had died in childhood sometime after 1883. Her younger brother Charles was born in 1884. Later in life she recounted that her father had practically no paternal instincts, and the family's existence was always troubled. The Nivisons moved frequently, although remaining in New York City.
In 1900, Jo enrolled in the Normal College of the City of New York (now Hunter College), a free teacher-training school for young women. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904 and decided to study art and eventually try to become an artist—already at college she started drawing and performing in productions of the drama club there. In late 1905 at the New York School of Art she met Robert Henri, who soon asked her to pose for a portrait (The Art Student, 1906). In February 1906, Nivison began her career as public school teacher. During the next decade she earned her living by teaching, but never abandoned art and remained in touch with Henri and many other artists; in 1907 she travelled to Europe with Henri and some of his students. By 1915, she joined the Washington Square Players as an actress and performed in their productions. During the summers she frequented various New England art colonies.
By 1918, she was seeking a change of scene and a new job. She unsuccessfully applied for a job with the Red Cross, seeking to go abroad again. World War I had not yet ended, and she signed up to do hospital work overseas. Taking a leave of absence from the New York City public schools, Jo left in late 1918 only to return in January 1919, ill with bronchitis. She was discharged by the Surgeon General in June, and discovered that she had lost her teaching position. Penniless and homeless, she found temporary shelter thanks to an old sexton at the Church of the Ascension who had helped her after seeing her weeping in the church. It was not until a year later that she won the right for another job from the Board of Education; after that, she continued teaching and pursuing a career in art.
She first met her future husband Edward Hopper in art school, and then again in 1914 in Ogunquit, where they were staying in the same boarding house. However, their friendship apparently only began some years later. Their relationship became much closer during the summer of 1923, when they were both living in an art colony in Gloucester, Massachusetts. After a courtship that lasted for about a year, the couple married on July 9, 1924. They remained together until Edward Hopper died in 1967. Jo modeled for the figures in most of her husband's paintings after 1924. Edward Hopper only produced one oil painting of his wife (Jo Painting (1936)), but frequently made watercolors, drawings and caricatures of her. Throughout her married life Jo kept extensive diaries that recount her life with Edward and his creative process. These diaries also reveal that the marriage was troubled: the couple had frequent rows that sometimes escalated into actual fighting. Twenty-two of Josephine Hopper's diaries are in the collection of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, MA.
As Edward Hopper's career soared soon after the marriage and his reputation continued to grow, Jo's artistic career waned after the 1920s. This was in part because "Jo poured her considerable energies into tending and nurturing her husband's work, handling loan requests and needling him into painting." She participated in a few group exhibitions (the biggest was organized by Herman Gulack in 1958 at the Greenwich Gallery), and she won the Huntington Hartford Foundation fellowship in 1957.
