Art of the 1940's

               Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, New York. Hopper is best known for his oil paintings even though he did watercolor and printmaking in etching. Hopper was a realist painter. All of his works represented his personal view (s) on modern American life. Edward Hopper is important to American art history because without his works America would not be as popular as it is today in art.

            Hopper’s influences are from both American and European art. His American influences were various books and darker themed movies. Hopper admits to being influenced by one European artist, and that artist was Charles Meryon who was French and an engraver. Hopper was a good student in school but struggled to find work because he was having trouble finding influences. He traveled to Massachusetts looking for inspiration and did find it and created his first outdoors painting “Squam Light”. The following year he went to an art show and for the first time sold one of his works. He sold his painting the “Sailing”. He thought that he would get more sales quickly after but it was a slow process to becoming famous. Almost eight years later, he met a woman named Josephine Nivision who later became his wife. She helped him become famous by getting six of Hoppers watercolor paintings into Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit. His work “The Mansard Rool” was purchased by the museum for 100 dollars, and the critics went crazy about it.  Hopper ended up selling all of his watercolor paintings at a show, and decided that he was no longer going to do illustration.

 He did not receive the attention he deserved until the age 41. Even though he finally received the attention he deserved, he did want it. He became rather bitter, and did not want anything to do with the public. He did not attend public meetings, or conventions, he preferred to keep to himself. Even though he kept to himself in his later life, he still produced many works throughout the 1930’s and the 1940’s. A couple of the more famous works created were “Hotel Lobby”, Morning in a City” and “New York Movie”. Since Hopper was active in attending cinemas and reading movie novels he does admit that he wished that he didn’t attend them and read them so much so he could have more time to paint. Hopper’s health was becoming ill and had many prostate surgeries. Along with the surgeries he medical problems. He died in his studio, which was near the Washington Square in New York City. He died in the year 1967, and his wife died 10 months after him. Hopper and his wife created over three thousand works of art that can be found at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art and The Des Moines Art.