Edward Hopper 1882-1967, South Carolina Morning, 1955. Oil on canvas, 30 9/16 × 40 1/4 in. (77.63 x 102.24 cm) Frame 38 1/8 × 48 1/8 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Given in memory of Otto L. Spaeth by his Family 67.13 © Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.
“Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time” is now on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and will be open until April 10, 2011. Barbara Haskell and Sasha Nicholas organized the exhibition in order to showcase Edward Hopper among his contemporaries – the Ashcan school painters, Precisionist painters, and the American scene painters of the early decades of the 1900s. Hopper’s work is on view alongside artists of his generation like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Guy Pène du Bois, Charles Sheeler, among others. His paintings, though, constitute the heart of the exhibition. The Whitney Museum owns a great deal of Hopper’s work, 2,500 to be precise, as his wife passed them on to the museum after his death. “Modern Life” shows some of the most famous ones – South Carolina Morning (1955), Soir Bleu (1914), and Gas Station (1940). Although the exhibition may be a little too short for Hopper’s more devoted fans, it is still a must-see.
Edward Hopper 1882-1967, Soir Bleu, 1914. Oil on canvas, Overall: 36 × 72in. (91.4 × 182.9cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1208. ©Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art. Photograph by Sheldan C. Collins
