Over the next several years, Hopper's painting style matured and his signature iconography emerged - from isolated figures in public or private interiors, to sun-soaked architecture, silent streets, and coastal scenes with lighthouses. This success enabled Hopper to finally give up illustrating. The show sold out and the Rehn Gallery continued to represent him for the rest of his life. In that same year he had a solo exhibition of watercolors at the Frank K. From that time on she became his primary model and most ardent supporter. In 1924, at age of 41, Hopper married Josephine (Jo) Nivison, whom he had met years earlier as an art student of Robert Henri. Hopper continued to receive great acclaim for his etchings over the years and considered them an essential part of his artistic development. One of his better known etchings, Night Shadows (1921) features the birds'-eye viewpoint, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and the air of mystery which would serve as inspiration for many film noir movies of the 1940s. Like the paintings for which he would later become renowned, Hopper's etchings embody a sense alienation and melancholy. In 1915, he took up printmaking, producing some 70 etchings and dry points over the next decade. Though he never stopped painting, it would be 11 years before he sold another artwork. That same year he sold his first painting, Sailing (1911), for $250 at the Armory show in New York. The influence of the Impressionists led him to the streets to draw and paint en plein air, or, as Hopper described it, ‘from the fact.’ He was especially attracted to Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas's unusual compositional arrangements in their depictions of modern urban life.Īfter returning from his final trip abroad in 1910, Hopper moved permanently to New York City and, in 1913, settled in a house that would be his home and studio for the rest of his life.
There he created beautiful uninhabited landscapes, deprived of tourist sights and attractions, including Steps in Paris (1906), Bistro (1909), Stairway at 48 rue de Lille Paris (1906), The new bridge (1909). Hopper travelled to Europe three times between 19, enjoying two extended stays in Paris. Unfortunately, success was slow in coming and he was forced to earn his living as an illustrator for nearly 20 more years until his painting career took off. He never really liked illustrating and longed for the freedom to paint from his imagination. In 1905, Hopper began working as an illustrator for a New York City advertising agency. Hopper's classmates at the school included George Bellows and Rockwell Kent. His teachers there included the American Impressionist William Merritt Chase (who founded the school) and Robert Henri, a leading figure of the Ashcan school, whose proponents advocated depicting the grittier side of urban life. Accordingly, he spent a year at the New York School of Illustration before transferring to the more serious New York School of Art (now Parsons School of Design) to realize his dream. Hopper's parents encouraged him to study commercial illustration instead of fine art. The boy was already serious about his artistic ambitions in the age of 10, when he started to sign and date his drawings. Hopper depicted the spirit of the time very subtly, showing it in the poses of characters, in the vast empty spaces around them, and also in his unique color palette.Įdward Hopper was born into a middle class family in Nyack, NY, a vibrant hub of transport and industry at the time. His suggestive imagery shares the mood of individual’s isolation with books of Tennessee Williams, Theodore Dreiser, Robert Frost, Jerome Salinger, as well as with canvasses of Giorgio De Chirico and Paul Delvaux. The ‘artist of empty spaces’ offers a remindful look at life of Americans during Great Depression. No other artist managed to capture the solitude within the modern city like Edward Hopper.
0 kommentar(er)
