Holiday in Reality: Edward Hopper

A Special Exhibition Review by Gail S. Myhre

About the show:

The Whitney Museum is home to the largest collection of the work of Edward Hopper in the world. This year, as part of this museum's 75th Anniversary celebration entitled Full House: Views of the Whitney's Collection at 75, the entire fifth floor of the museum is dedicated to his art in a six month installation called Holiday in Reality: Edward Hopper which remains on view from June 29 through December 3, 2006.

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) needs no introduction to us. His images are iconic and deeply embedded in our contemporary culture. Indeed, probably his most familiar work, Nighthawks (1942), has been extensively parodied, and that instantly recognizable red-eye diner populated with dead Hollywood stars and starlets, a group of rabbits, and Santa and his reindeer, among others.

And so, as one exits the elevator on the fifth floor there is an immediate connection with Early Sunday Morning (1930), mounted directly opposite. The quality of winter light on the urban buildings is typical of Hopper's work, which was primarily concerned with color, light and form, drawing as it does upon his avid interest in the Impressionists of the 19th Century.


Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)
Early Sunday Morning, 1930
Oil on canvas
35 3/16 x 60 1/4 in. (89.38 x 153.04 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney,
31.426
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Photograph by Geoffrey Clements


Going left from the elevators into the Laurier Family Gallery we find a collection of Hopper's seascapes. These open and expansive paintings also illustrate the strong influence upon Hopper by Monet and other Impressionists, with the effects of light and water having some echoes of Monet's Antibes and Alfred Sisley's paintings of L'Ile Saint-Denis.

Against the rear wall of the next gallery space hangs a nude, Morning in a City (1944), and to the right are several sketches of faces, studies done for this rather intimate painting. It is in these that we first sense the lack of emotional engagement in Hopper's works which treat the human figure. Even as fully finished oil paintings, Hopper's nudes appear almost as studies of form. The women are self-absorbed, turned away. Hopper gives no hint as to what they, with their backs to us, may be looking at or thinking of. The atmosphere is almost voyeuristic.


Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)
A Woman in the Sun, 1961
Oil on canvas
40 1/8 x 61 1/4 in. (101.92 x 155.58 cm)
50th Anniversary Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hackett
in honor of Edith and Lloyd Goodrich,
84.31
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Photograph by Geoffrey Clements


Continuing into the next gallery, we see showcased at left center on the facing wall the painting Hotel Lobby (1943), with sketches for this on the left wall. At right center hangs Office At Night (1940), and on the right wall the graphite on paper studies for this painting. The dissection of his method by exhibiting paintings and sketches together in this manner is fascinating, as we see how Hopper explored the detail and geometry of the rooms to be painted. His interest in the architectural detail of the interior spaces he depicted is particularly striking here.

Opening off the main hallway, the Cassullo Gallery is focused primarily on Hopper's sketches and his early French work, and in fact the gallery is captioned: "Hopper In Paris (1906–1916)." The strong influence Hopper took from the Impressionists is especially clear here. Beginning with dark, small canvasses which evoke a wintry atmosphere, he literally passes into springtime with lighter colors and more expansive views. These fully display the wonderful quality of light that has caused so many artists, Hopper included, to fall in love with this city.


Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)
Soir Bleu, 1914
Oil on canvas
36 x 72 in. (91.44 x 182.88 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest,
70.1208
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
© Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper,
Licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art
Photograph by Geoffrey Clements


Hopper was obviously more interested in the placement of form and masses, and the use of color and light, than he was in the depiction of human emotion. As noted above, architectural detail shows more concentration and focus than do human faces. His landscapes seem more animated than his human figures, and his portraiture invariably shows a certain emotional distance; in no case does the subject directly address the viewer, but always looks to the side – disinterested, disengaged. Even his self-portraiture does not look outward, as so much portraiture naturally tends to do, being painted with the aid of a mirror. Instead, almost deliberately reducing his own self-portrait to a study of form, he seems to be forcing the viewer to see the human figure as essentially an object to be depicted like any other.

Hung in the central gallery are some of Hopper's landscapes, including Railroad Sunset (1929) with its marvelous and evocative sky of green deepening gradually and inevitably to red, and the stark geometry of the railroad signal tower silhouetted in the foreground. These are further evidence of Hopper's primary interest in color and form.

The bare white boxiness of the Whitney's galleries does not detract from the warmth of color in Hopper's paintings. Although many of his works express a sense of psychological alienation, the colors used are autumnal, and he is especially interested in the depiction of light on warmly colored surfaces. All of his scenic works appear to depict a late fall season, with the exception of the urban landscapes. The latter seem more wintry, many of them exhibiting an atmosphere of strong sunlight on a winter's day.


Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)
Railroad Sunset, 1929
Oil on canvas
29 1/4 x 48 in. (74.3 x 121.92 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest
70.1170
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
© Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper,
Licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art
Photograph by Geoffrey Clements

The large number of studies and etchings present at this exhibit are a wonderful testament to Hopper's ability to depict light in black and white as well as color. Again, even specific human studies such as the wall displaying dozens of his small studies on paper, with graphite and watercolor and with conté crayon, refuse to address the viewer, rendering them near abstractions. Over and over, Hopper's human subjects seem to be capable of displaying only one emotional state: detachment.

Proceeding into the Geier Gallery, we have that portion of this exhibit captioned "Hopper as Illustrator." The captioning notes that Hopper disliked this type of work and executed commercial designs purely out of necessity. As may be, his distaste for the limits imposed by commercial clients clearly did not diminish his obvious facility for graphics work, in which design is more important than detail and messages must be strongly and directly communicated. In fact, we can see from this striking selection that his previously noted abiding interest in composition made him an extremely capable commercial illustrator.

As mentioned above, the Whitney's exhibition galleries are especially spare, with high ceilings, white walls, and large spaces between installations. Illumination is more than adequate and placement is intuitive, especially in regard of the juxtapositions of final paintings with their preliminary sketches. Captioning is minimal, and for this exhibition it has been limited to a single general overview of material posted at the entrance to some of the galleries, with title captions beneath individual works. There is no catalogue of this exhibition available, but Hopper's paintings and watercolors have been catalogued by the Whitney previously and additional volumes about the artist are available.

Though Holiday in Reality: Edward Hopper will run until December 3, 2006, the Whitney Museum's full 75th Anniversary celebration was presented only through September 3, 2006. It should be noted that the Hopper exhibition contains works on loan from other institutions which will be rotated into and out of the exhibition during its viewing period. Office at Night and Hotel Lobby, for instance, will be on view only until October 1, while Nighthawks may be seen from October 4 through December 3. A full schedule of loan dates is available from the museum.

"Holiday in Reality: Edward Hopper" is on view from June 7 through December 3, 2006 at the Whitney Museum, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, New York, NY 10021 (Telephone: 1-800-WHITNEY; Website ). Hours of operation are: Wednesday and Thursday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Friday, 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM; Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The museum is closed Monday and Tuesday. Adult admission to the museum is $15.00.

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From your Guide: Gail S. Myhre, Correspondent for Museums and Special Exhibitions, has been studying Roman history and art for twelve years. Her eclectic range of interests includes the surrealism of Dalí and Magritte, the post-modernism of Warhol and Lichtenstein, and the Ukiyo-e prints of Hasui and Toshida, among others. Gail resides in New York City and has a young son.