9781422276440

INTRODUCTION

Whitney Museum of American Art. After her death in 1968 Hopper’s wife, Josephine, bequeathed her husband’s entire artistic estate to the museum. As a result, it houses today one of the most comprehensive collections of Hopper’s art. Additionally, the museum owns an enormous bulk of archival materials on the artist such as his ledger books and private correspondence. Furthermore, the Whitney has been a forerunner in promoting Hopper scholarship ever since it

Nighthawks 1942, oil on canvas; 33 1/4 x 60 1/8 in. (84 x 153 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago. One of Hopper’s most famous works, Nighthawks , is a view of city life late at night. The locale is a diner in Greenwich Village that which Hopper knew well. Fluorescent lighting was relatively new in the 1940s and Hopper makes use of its brightness to emphasize the diner’s interior, an oasis of comfort in the dark night of the city.

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