Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was born on Nyack, New York, just outside Manhattan on the Hudson River. When Edward was eight years old, his father bought a dry goods store and the son sometimes worked there after school. Hopper's talent for drawing showed itself early: by the time he was ten, he was signing and dating his small sketches. As he grew up and continued drawing, he made self-portraits of varying sizes, drawn in either pencil or ink. By eighteen years old, we see a strikingly handsome young man, but one with a clearly introspective personality. His parents suggested that young Edward take up illustration, so after graduation from high school, he enrolled at the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York City.

The following year Hopper undertook more training of this kind at the New York School of Art (often called the Chase School) founded by the artist William Merritt Chase. Eventually, Hopper was to earn his living for twenty years in the commercial field working in various media; charcoal, pencil, crayon, pen and ink, and watercolor, turning out a variety of posters, advertisements, and illustrations. Here his life, interestingly enough, can be compared with Winslow Homer's. Hopper had joined the painting classes of Robert Henri who propagated the colorful "ashcan" approach to art. Henri taught at the Chase School where Hopper took additional classes under Chase himself and under other instructors. Studying with Henri meant exposure to some radical ideas and to a variety of artistic approaches by some interesting fellow painters: he later admitted that Henri was the most influential teacher he ever had. He also won a number of prizes.

While still in his learning twenties, Hopper made three visits to Europe. He admired the Impressionists and their daring experiments with the treatment of outdoor light. Light became one of the powerful concerns in any painting that Hopper undertook after his return to America. Dealers in America continued to reject his work, and he sold his next painting only ten years later. It was a watercolor, called The Mansard Roof and it was purchased for one hundred dollars. When he exhibited a group of watercolors at a New York gallery the following year, the work sold out, and his reputation was finally established.

Hopper's career spanned a period of almost sixty years. His subject matter was the physical face of America in city, town, and countryside, and his aim was to portray it with the most exact transcription possible of his impressions. His powerful handling of light dramatically underlies his stark artistic vision. The geometric designs made by sunlight reflected on the exteriors or interiors of buildings was a recurring source of fascination.