Edward Hopper's poster Martha McKeen of Wellfleet was originally painted as an oil on canvas in 1944. It is in the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Madrid, Spain.
Edward Hopper
Robert Hughes, the author of American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, has written that "Edward Hopper was the quintessential realist painter of twentieth-century America." The American public agrees with the art experts when it comes to Hopper. His artwork is extremely popular.
Edward Hopper did not achieve artistic acclaim easily. He was born in Nyack, New York, in 1882. He studied at the New York School of Illustrating, and later at the more prestigious New York School of Art. Here he studied under American realist Robert Henri. After his studies at the NY School of Art, Edward Hopper went to Europe to study in Paris. This was 1906, at a key time in the development of modern art.
Hopper struggled for years. He paid the bills working as a commercial illustrator. His first creative success as a painter came in 1924 when he sold out a show at the Rehn Gallery in New York. This is the year he painted The House by the Railroad. He went on to create many other well-known works of art, including:
The Bootleggers (1925),
Lighthouse Hill (1927),
Coast Guard Station (1929),
Room in Brooklyn (1932),
The Long Leg (1935),
Ground Swell (1939),
Gas (1940),
Nighthawks (1942),
Approaching a City (1946),
Seven A.M. (1949),
Rooms by the Sea (1951),
People in the Sun (1960).
In the same year that his career first took off, 1924, Edward Hopper married Josephine Verstille Nivison. "Jo" modeled for many of Edward's paintings in the following years.
In 1967, Edward Hopper passed away, leaving us a wonderful legacy of fine art. His subject matter ranges from diners to rooms and houses, to women and other portraits. He painted cityscapes in New York, and many lighthouses, boats, and other images of nautical and ocean scenes.
Hopper Poster/Art Links
