Edward Hopper is an American artist who perfectly mastered the art of uncompromisingly conveying the most diverse aspects of life, endowing them with a deep emotional content. His paintings, often filled with still, anonymous figures and compositions against the backdrop of popular New York public spaces from 1920-1940, invariably evoke a feeling of loneliness.
Biography
Edward Hopper was born in the town of Nyack (on the banks of the Hudson River) on July 22, 1882 in the family of Henry Hopper and Elizabeth Griffiths Smith. He had an older sister named Marion. The middle-class Edward family has always supported the intellectual and artistic pursuits of children. By the age of five, one could speak of the boy’s extraordinary abilities, which he continued to develop in primary and secondary schools. Among his earliest works is an oil painting of 1895, which depicts a rowing boat. But art did not immediately become the work of Edward Hopper. For a long time he dreamed of a career as a naval architect.
After graduating from high school in 1899, Hopper enrolled in illustration courses. And already in 1890 he continued his studies at the School of Art and Design in New York. Among others, his teachers here were the Impressionists William Merritt Chase and Robert Henry from the so-called "Ashkan School" movement, which was famous for the "fixation" of realism both in form and in content.
Career
After graduating in 1905, Hopper got a job as an illustrator in an advertising agency. Despite the fact that the work seemed creatively asphyxiating and impracticable to him, it was his main source of income. He could well contain himself and continue to create in his own style. In addition, Hopper made several overseas trips. In 1906, 1909 and 1910, Edward visited Paris, as well as Spain in 1910. It was during his travels that he managed to gain experience that turned out to be key in shaping his personal style. Despite the growing popularity in Europe of such abstract movements as cubism and Fauvism, Hopper was most attracted to the work of the Impressionists, especially Claude Monet and Eduard Manet. During this period he creates the paintings “The Bridge in Paris” (1906), “The Louvre and the Marina for Boats” (1907) and “Summer Interior” (1909).
Returning to the United States, Hopper quit his job as an illustrator. He began to exhibit his own works, becoming a participant in the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910. And in 1913 at the International Arms Exhibition his first painting Sailing was sold (1911), exhibited next to the works of Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas and many others. In the same year, Hopper moved to an apartment in Washington Square in Greenwich Village in New York, where he will spend most of his personal and creative life.
In 1920, at the age of 37, Hopper was given the opportunity to organize his personal exhibition. It was held at the Whitney Studio Club with the participation of collector and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. First of all, Hopper's paintings about Paris were presented here.
In the second half of his life, the artist worked side by side with his wife Josephine in a studio in Washington Square or during their frequent trips to New England. His works of this period often indicate their location, be it the calm image of the lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth in his Two-Lighthouse Lighthouse (1929) or the lonely woman sitting in the picture Automatic Machine (1927), which he first presented at his second exhibition in Renee. There he sold so many paintings that for some time he could not be exhibited until he created a sufficient number of new works.
Another notable work by Hopper is the 1925 painting, which depicts a Victorian mansion next to a railroad track called "House by the Railroad." In 1930, she was the first acquisition of the newly created Museum of Modern Art in New York. Three years later, Hopper's personal retrospective was presented here. But despite this overwhelming success, some of Hopper's best works were yet to come. In 1939, he finished the film "The New York Film", which depicts a young woman-ticketer, standing alone in the lobby of the theater. In January 1942, his most famous work, Midnight, was presented, depicting three visitors and a waiter in a brightly lit diner on a quiet, empty street. Almost immediately, it was acquired by the Chicago Institute of the Arts, where it is on display to this day.
Hopper's popularity waned in the mid-20th century, when abstract expressionism gained widespread popularity. Despite this, he continued to create quality work and gain critical acclaim.
