New York City was Edward Hopper's home for nearly six decades (1908–67), a period that spans his entire mature career and coincides with a historical period of urban development. While skyscrapers dotted the skyline and elevated trains and construction sites roared below, Hopper's New York betrays only glimpses of the wider changes underfoot. His city was human-sized, decidedly non-iconic, and largely rooted in a past that was out of step with the present.
This exhibit will be the first of its kind to focus on Hopper's rich and enduring relationship with New York: just as the city was the subject, setting and inspiration for so many of the artist's most celebrated and persistently galling images. Edward Hopper's New York will give a comprehensive look at Hopper's life and work through images of his city, from his first impressions of New York in sketches, prints and illustrations, to his latest paintings, in which the city served as a backdrop for his evocative distillations of urban experience. Drawing from the Whitney's extensive artist holdings and amplified by key borrowings, the exhibition will bring together many of Hopper's iconic images of the city, as well as several lesser-known but pivotal examples. The presentation will be significantly informed by a variety of materials from the Sanborn Hopper Archive, recently acquired by the Museum: printed matter, correspondence, photographs and diaries which together inspire new insights into Hopper's life in the city. Exploring the artist's work through the lens of New York, the exhibition offers new insight into this formidable figure and considers the city itself as a major player. This exhibition is organized by Kim Conaty, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, with Melinda Lang, Senior Curatorial Assistant.
Edward Hopper (1882–1967). The American painter used bright colors to depict ordinary scenes from everyday life. His paintings were done in such a way as to create a gloomy and melancholy atmosphere. Snapshot-like compositions such as "Nighthawks" (1942) use the eerie light of a late-night dinner party to isolate patrons and foster an inevitable sense of loneliness. Hopper was born in Nyack, New York on July 22, 1882. In 1899 he went to New York to study at the New York School of Art. He trained primarily as an illustrator, but between 1901 and 1906 he studied painting under Robert Henri, the realist painter and head of the Ashcan School of Realism. Three trips to Europe from 1906 to 1910 exposed Hopper to the experimentation going on in France, but his new ideas did not affect him. Aside from summers in New England, he's lived in New York City. Although he exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City, Hopper devoted most of his time to advertising and illustrative etchings until 1924. He then took up painting full-time. Like other Ashcan School artists, Hopper depicted common scenes of city life. His subjects included city streets, roadside lunch stands, Victorian homes, New England cottages, barren apartments, and theater interiors. All display a pervasive calm without any hint of urban congestion. Among his works were “House by the Railroad” (1925), “Early Sunday Morning” (1930), “Room in Brooklyn” (1932) and “Second Story Sunlight” (1960). Hopper's first solo show was in 1920. Later in his life he had major retrospective exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He died in New York on May 15, 1967.
