Hopper, Edward

TIMELINE: Pre-War American Painting

Hopper, Edward (1882-1967). American painter, active mainly in New
York.

Interior scenes
Street scenes
Landscapes

He trained under Robert Henri, 1900-06, and between 1906 and 1910
made three trips to Europe, though these had little influence on his
style. Hopper exhibited at the Armoury Show in 1913, but from then
until 1923 he abandoned painting, earning his living by commercial
illustration. Thereafter, however, he gained widespread recognition as a
central exponent of American Scene painting, expressing the loneliness,
vacuity, and stagnation of town life. Yet Hopper remained always an
individualist: `I don't think I ever tried to paint the American scene; I'm
trying to paint myself.'

Nighthawks
1942 (120 Kb); Oil on canvas, 30 x 60 in; The Art Institute of
Chicago

Paintings such as Nighthawks (Art Institute of Chicago, 1942) convey a

mood of loneliness and desolation by their emptiness or by the presence
of anonymous, non-communicating figures. But of this picture Hopper
said: `I didn't see it as particularly lonely... Unconsciously, probably, I
was painting the loneliness of a large city.' Deliberately so or not, in his
still, reserved, and blandly handled paintings Hopper often exerts a
powerful psychological impact -- distantly akin to that made by the
Metaphysical painter de Chirico; but while de Chirico's effect was

obtained by making the unreal seem real, Hopper's was rooted in the
presentation of the familiar and concrete.

Self-Portrait
1925-30 (110 Kb); Oil on canvas, 25 1/16 x 20 3/8 in; Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York

American scene painting

Edward Hopper painted American landscapes and cityscapes with a
disturbing truth, expressing the world around him as a chilling,
alienating, and often vacuous place. Everybody in a Hopper picture
appears terribly alone. Hopper soon gained a widespread reputation as
the artist who gave visual form to the loneliness and boredom of life in
the big city. This was something new in art, perhaps an expression of
the sense of human hopelessness that characterized the Great
Depression of the 1930s.
Edward Hopper has something of the lonely gravity peculiar to Thomas
Eakins, a courageous fidelity to life as he feels it to be. He also shares
Winslow Homer's power to recall the feel of things. For Hopper, this feel
is insistently low-key and ruminative. He shows the modern world
unflinchingly; even its gaieties are gently mournful, echoing the
disillusionment that swept across the country after the start of the Great
Depression in 1929. Cape Cod Evening (1939; 77 x 102 cm (30 1/4 x 40
in)) should be idyllic, and in a way it is. The couple enjoy the evening
sunshine outside their home, yet they are a couple only technically and
the enjoyment is wholly passive as both are isolated and introspective in
their reveries. Their house is closed to intimacy, the door firmly shut
and the windows covered. The dog is the only alert creature, but even it
turns away from the house. The thick, sinister trees tap on the window
panes, but there will be no answer.
14 Jul 2002, Nicolas Pioch - Top - Up - Info
Thanks to the BMW Foundation, the WebMuseum mirrors, partners and
contributors for their support.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/

SELECTED WORKS BY DUANE HANSON

Click on images to enlarge

Duane Hanson
TOURISTS II
1988, autobody filler,
fibreglass and mixed
media, with
accessories
life size

Since the early 1970s Duane Hanson has been making startlingly lifelike sculptures of middle America accomplished
through a complex process of casting from live models, recreated in bronze or fibreglass resin.

Duane Hanson
YOUNG SHOPPER
1973, polyester and
fibreglass,
polychromed in oil,
with accessories
life size

Duane Hanson concentrated on the naked fact of the subject, an astonishingly persuasive counterfeit of another
human being as a fully realised physical presence. When describing this sculpture Duane Hanson said: I like the
physical burdens this woman carries. She is weighted down by all of her shopping bags and purchases, and she has
become almost a bag herself. She carries physical burdens the burdens of life, of everyday living. But initially, its
quite a funny sculpture.

Duane Hanson
QUEENIE II
1988, polychromed
bronze, with
accessories
life size

Queenie can be understood on one level as the personification of all those resigned-looking women who drag their
bodies around in pursuit of the mess created by the rest of us. But we are made to confront the fact that such
women, who are usually invisible and ignored, are not just faceless domestics.

Duane Hanson
MAN ON A BENCH
1997-98, vinyl,
polychromed in oil,
with accessories
life size

Duane Hansons hyper-real Old Man on a Bench is in a peculiarly modern predicament of drifting or simply existing,
merely marking time on his way from birth to death.

Duane Hanson
WOMAN WITH CHILD IN
STROLLER
1985, autobody
filler, polyvinyl and
mixed media, with
accessories
life size

The insistence on the irreplaceability of each person, and on the dignity to be accorded to those who are usually
overlooked or spurned as ordinary are central to Duane Hansons art and humanitarian vision.

Duane Hanson
FLEA MARKET VENDOR
1990, polychromed
bronze, with
accessories
life size

Duane Hansons sculptures of people are just too believable. Creating vignettes of real American life, he doesnt forget
a single detail. Casting his figures from live models in his studio, Duane Hanson then adorned them with every
attribute of life-likeness from tiny body hairs, varicose viens, bruises, and hangnails. He hand picked their clothes
from second hand shops, and accessorised them accordingly.

Duane Hanson
TRAVELLER
1988, autobody
filler, fibreglass
and mixed media
with accessories
life size

The Traveller snoozes sunburned and hung over in a pile of cheap luggage waiting exhaustedly for a connecting flight
home.