Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper, Self-Portrait, 1906
Born
July 22, 1882(1882-07-22)
Nyack, New York
Died
May 15, 1967 (aged 84)
New York City
Nationality
American
Field
Painting
Works
Automat (1927)
Chop Suey (1929)
Nighthawks (1942)
Office in a Small City (1953)
Influenced by Robert Henri
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15,
1967) was a prominent American realist
painter and printmaker. While most popularly
known for his oil paintings, he was equally
proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker
in etching. In both his urban and rural
scenes, his spare and finely calculated ren-
derings reflected his personal vision of mod-
ern American life.[1]
Biography
Early Life
Hopper was born in upper Nyack, New York,
a yacht-building center north of New York
City, the only son of comfortably well-off
middle class family. His parents, mostly of
Dutch ancestry, were Garret Henry Hopper,
a dry-goods merchant, and his wife Elizabeth
Griffiths Smith.[2] Though not as successful
as his forebears, Garrett provided well for his
two children with considerable help from his
wife’s inheritance, and he retired at age
forty-nine.[3] Edward and his only sibling
Marion attended both private and public
schools, and were raised in a strict Baptist
home.[4] Owing in part to his father’s mild
nature, the household was dominated by wo-
men—his mother, grandmother, sister, and
maid.[5]
Hopper was a good student in grade
school and showed talent in drawing at age
five. He readily absorbed his father’s intellec-
tual tendencies and love of French and Russi-
an culture and demonstrated his mother’s
artistic lineage.[6] Hopper’s parents encour-
aged his art and kept him readily supplied
with materials, instructional magazines, and
illustrated books. By his teens, he was work-
ing in pen-and-ink, charcoal, watercolor, and
oil—drawing from nature as well as making
political cartoons.[7] In 1895, he created his
first signed oil painting, Rowboat in Rocky
Cove, which demonstrated his early interest
in nautical subjects.[8]
In his early sel