Art in the Round: Edward Hopper

The Art Institute is hosting the Hopper exhibit in conjunction with a presentation of watercolors by Winslow Homer. Both painters are famous for portrayals of America that are both starkly realistic and aesthetically transcendent. Homer’s images primarily highlight scenes from nature; in contrast, Hopper once said, “What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.” Explore “Exhibition Themes” to learn about the locales Hopper favored, and view selected works to compare the lonely honesty of the New York streets to the glittering quiet of homes and beaches in Maine and Cape Cod.

The exhibit began at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston last May. On the “Explore” page []  you can virtually leaf through Hopper’s sketchbook, and listen to excepts from the exhibition’s audio guide. Or visit the “Exhibition” page and launch a slide show of select works with descriptive captions.

The New York Times art section reviewed the exhibit when it debuted in Boston. Holland Cotter concedes that “Hopper’s light gave Depression-era Americans, and many others thereafter, a glamorous, even heroic image of themselves as solitary and tragic, persevering, deservedly nostalgic,” but claims that this technique was introduced by American landscape painters, not Hopper. Cotter vacillates as to whether he thinks Hopper is worthy of being an “American master,” but asserts that the exhibition lacks complexity and suspense. He also laments the absence of paintings from Hopper’s Paris years.

A Time magazine review covering a Hopper exhibit at the Whitney museum in 1995 sings a different tune. The Whitney chose to pair Hopper’s paintings not with the usual placards but with writing from authors who benefited from Hopper’s influence. The exhibit revealed Hopper’s distinct and undeniable shaping of art, American identity and the modern perception. According to Time. “He saw an America no one else had got right; and now you can't see it without seeing him.” The magazine staff are clearly Hopper fans of long standing: he appeared on a Time cover in 1956.

The Time articles mentions definitive Hopper scholar Gail Levin. Her book, “Edward Hopper: The Art and Artist,” is recommended by both the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For a shorter overview of the painter’s life, skim the Hopper chronology presented by the Tate Modern as part of a 2004 exhibition.

As you can see from the timeline, Hopper spent some years painting in Paris. The New York Times notes the absence of paintings from this period in the latest Hopper retrospective, but the Tyler Museum in Texas devoted a 2004 exhibit to presenting these works. Some descriptions and images are available on the site.