Edward Hopper spent some six decades of his life in New York, and to the American realist painter, the metropolis was unique in its way of life. Starting from Oct. 19, visitors to Manhattan’s Whitney Museum of American Art in the Meatpacking District can experience the city through Hopper’s eyes.
Born in the state of New York in 1882, Hopper spent much of his working life in the Big Apple, where he moved in 1908. Until his death in 1967, he mostly lived in the same apartment in north Manhattan.
In his New York student days, he was influenced mainly by the great European artists – Johannes Vermeer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Diego Velazquez. The influence of Impressionist school artists such as Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh is also reflected in his art.
He is widely known for his famous piece, "Nighthawks," in which there are four customers and a waiter, who are in a brightly lit diner at night. As it was a piece created during wartime, many art critics hailed the artwork as a great representation of the alienation of the modern man due to war trauma.
Constantly exploring the rapidly changing cityscape, including on the elevated trains running through the metropolis and in its restaurants, New York was his happy hunting ground when it came to the search for inspiration.
In his paintings, Hopper often foregrounded the limited privacy afforded by the expansive and ever-changing metropolis. At the same time, he avoided crowded places and big tourist attractions in his art, instead capturing those alone in the city, sometimes after dark in illuminated rooms.
But the changes undergone by the rapidly growing New York are also a recurring theme in his paintings.
According to the museum, the exhibit “considers the city itself as a lead actor.”
Besides some of the artist’s best-known works like “Automat”(1927), ”Early Sunday Morning” (1930), “Room in New York” (1932), “New York Movie” (1939) and “Morning Sun” (1952), the exhibition also includes numerous sketches and letters as well as video installations.
"Edward Hopper’s New York” runs until March 5.
