Edward Hopper (18821967) was born in Nyack, New York, a small town some forty miles north of New York City. As a realistic painter of twentieth century America, he portrayed everyday ordinary people and places as poetic yet sometimes mysterious entities. His paintings were often interpretive renderings of the settings he saw as he sought to change or transform the scene in his mind many times before he finally actually painted. Hopper was naturally drawn to New York’s metropolis with its art schools, museums, galleries, theaters, and other cultural opportunities. Early in his career, he studied commercial illustration which served to provide parttime work while attending the New York School of Art. In these early years, Hopper was influenced by William Chase, Kenneth Miller, and Robert Henri who later was to serve as Hopper’s mentor. Between 1906 and 1910, Hopper made three trips to Paris to study the fine arts, watercolors, and Manet, and in 1910, he returned to America to be influenced by John Sloan. By the end of 1913, he had moved to his Greenwich Village studio at 3 Washington Square North which would become his home and his workplace for the remainder of his life.
Having grown up close to the Hudson River, Hopper appears to have a close affinity to water. Many of his works involve seascapes, lighthouses, nautical scenes, harbors, rivers, bridges, and even a view of Cape Cod Bay. “Hopper was always drawn to water, which may have symbolized freedom and escape for this reclusive artist.”2 His choice of subjects provides an important clue to Hopper’s vision. The places and scenes that Hopper painted reveal much about his personality, his tastes, and the cultural climate of his time.
As Hopper was growing up in Nyack, New York in his teen years, Stephen Crane was busily writing narrative, journalistic reports about ordinary people and places down the road apiece. Crane was considered a realist, a naturalist, and a symbolist in many ways comparative to Hopper. Crane, in trying to explain his writings, suggests: “The true artist is the man who leaves pictures of his own time as they appear to him.”3 It is to this end that I believe that Hopper, as well as Crane, were true artists in every sense of the word.