Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography [1 ed.] 0394546644, 9780394546643
A profile of American artist Edward Hopper is based on diaries by his wife Jo, revealing Hopper's dour and represse
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Hopper AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY
Gail LeviD
FPT 4(^00
I the
In
tense,
Hopper (1882-1967),
of Kdvvard
art
whom we recognize some-
unhappy men and women, in mysterithing of our neighbors and ourselves, play out ous dramas
stripped-down spaces
silent,
in
raked by an unrelenting and revealing
—
light.
stages
These
landscapes paintings, and Hopper's equally evocative and houses, make us wonder: what kind of man had this
haunting vision, and what kind of
engendered
life
this
art.^
No
one
is
answer these questions
better qualified to
than the art historian Gail Levin, author of the major catalogue studies of Hopper's work (including the raisonne) and curator of
many
exhibitions that explored
development and cultural context. Delving deeply letters into his art and into a rich archive of unpublished
his
phy," the
now
diaries, she
and
which
man
reveals
himself
and helped
to
"An
constructs
Intimate Biogra-
the true nature and personality of
— and of the woman who shared
shape his
Hopper came from
his life
art.
a middle-class family in the
son River town of Nyack,
New
An
York.
Hud-
early gift for
drawing freed him from the maternal apron-strings to study art in New York City, and then to paint in Pans.
There he conceived an abiding
love for French culture,
enjoyed a brush with romance, and recorded
in paint his
impressions of the City of Light. Alas, these paintings were not to the taste of the America to which he returned, and for
many
years the success
won
early by his
For art school contemporaries quite eluded Hopper. illusnearly two decades he had to eke out a living as an and popular
trator for advertising
fiction
— an occupa-
tion he detested.
The
turning point came when, already past forty, he
married the
Josephine Nivison (1883-1968),
new impulse to his painting. For and Edward lived out a love-hate
gave Jo
artist
was
a
and
passionate, at times violent,
Deeply divided by temperament outgoing, and talkative as
and taciturn artistic
for
— and by
his
—
Jo
Edward wounding
forty-three years, relationship that utterly symbiotic.
was
as vivacious,
was dour, repressed,
ambitions, they nonetheless
French poetry and world
who
liter.
co-^
tempt a
for her
deep love d for the
Civic Center 760. 092 HOPPER, E Levin, Gail, 1948-
Edward Hopper an intimate biography 31111015355074 :
DATE DUE
DEMCO,
INC. 38-2931
2999
ALSO BY GAIL LEVIN Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonne The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute
to
Edward Hopper
(editor)
Theme and Improvisation: Kandins^ and the American jgi2-ig^0
Avant-garde,
(principal co-author)
Marsden Hartley
in
Bavaria
Twentieth -Century American Painting, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Hopper's Places
Edward Hopper Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist Edward Hopper as
Illustrator
Edward Hopper: The Complete Abstract Expressionism:
Prints
The Formative Years
(co-author)
Synchromism and American Color Abstraction, igio-ig2^
ft
Arnold Newman, Edward and Jo Hopper Arnold Newman.
in
South Truro,
i()6o.
Photograph
©
igy4,
[ An
Intimate Biography
KHIl LFVIN
\%
Alfred A.
Knopf NewYorf^ 7995
A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF,
THIS
IS
Copyright
©
INC.
7995 by Gail Levin
Library of Congress
All rights reserved under International and
Cataloging-in -Publication Data
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Pub-
Levin, Gail, [date]
lished in the United States by Alfred A.
Knopf,
Edward Hopper
Canada
Gail Levin.
Inc.,
by
New Yor\,
and simultaneously
Random House of Canada
Toronto. Distributed by
in
Limited,
Random House,
Inc.,
Frontispiece photograph
©
i^y^, Arnold
man; photograph on page ^^j
©
an intimate biography
I
ist ed.
cm.
p.
New Yor\.
—
:
ISBN 0-^^4-^466^1-4 1.
Hopper, Edward, i882-ig6j.
2.
Artists
I.
Title.
— United States — Biography.
New-
igg^, Arnold
n6^^'/.h6l48
7995
Newman. y6o\og2—dc2o
Owing to
limitations
ments for permission lished
ofspace,
all
acknowledg-
to reprint previously
95-2114
CIP
pub-
and unpublished material may be found
following the index.
[B]
Manufactured First Edition
in the
United States of America
For John Babcoct{ Van Sickle
Introduction: Truth
and Pain
x
i
The Roots of Conflict: 1 882- i8gg Defining the Talent: i8gg-igo6
Seductive Paris: igo6-igoj
3
2 7
4 9
The Ambivalent American: igoy-igio In Sea rch of a Style:
igii-igi^
84
The Detour through Etching: igi^-igi8
The Deeper Hunger: igi8-ig2j
T/jd*
Leading Lady
F/r^/ Success:
1
4 6
igi^-igi^
i
6 7
7 2
i
2 3
1
o 2
CONTENTS
/
Getting Established: ig2^-ig2y
On
8 8
Road to America: 1^28- ig2g
the
First Retrospective
to Paint:
320
Failed Odyssey: 1941
Nighthawks: 1942
the
333
348
358
Home Front:
Anxiety: 1946-194^
375
385
400
and Loss: 1948
408
Melancholy Reflection: 1949
A
Retrospective Year: /950
Mexico Again: 19^1
367
1944
The Aesthetic Divide: 194^
Illness
307
19^9
The War Begins: 19^0
War on
2
272
Consequences of Success: 19^6-19^8
Mexico: 194^
i
and the Truro House: 19s 3- ^93 5
Intellectual Self-Portrait
The Struggle
2
227
Recogn ition: 1930-ig^^
An
i
4 2
436
Planning Reality: 7952
445
i
283
2 5
i
via
CONTENTS
/
Reality: ig^j
4 5 5
Tat{ing Stocl{: ig^4
474
482
Personal Vision: ig^^
Time Cover Story: ig^6 Toward
494
Reconciliation: ig^y-ig^8
Excursion into Philosophy: ig^g
Protest:
ig6o
Prints Again:
529 igGi-igGi
543
Last Rehearsal: 1^6^-1^64
Final Curtain: 7965-/967
Bibliographical Notes
Notes
583
Acknowledgments Index
5 8
647
645
554 569
i
508
520
^^
Hi
TRUTH IN
PHIN
THE LAST DECADE
of her
books: one on Arthur, her alley cat,
Hopper was planning to writc two strayed some thirty years before, and one }o
life,
on Edward, her husband. "Some day T'm going
ward Hopper," she can do
it.
told
whole
story.
Jo's
story of
It's
He
Ed-
"No one
else
an interviewer, adding with emphasis,
The man from The New
but finally gave up.
to write the real story of
YorJ^er
wanted
to
do
a Silhouette
of Eddie,
never get the
just couldn't get the material. You'll
pure Dostoevsky. Oh, the shattering bitterness!"'
boast was a feint to intimidate the inquirer. She never wrote "the real
Edward Hopper." But through
the years,
from the early 1930s
until
her eyesight failed not long before she died in 1968, she did keep diaries.
Often she wrote to express herself
She told of her frustration just like
dropping
bottom."^ poseful.
day,
As time
She began
March
Rorschach see too
at his silence:
passed, the entries to
imagine
much,
it
doesn't
became more
a future audience.
Envisioning a prospective reader
Jo verified suddenly: "This
fill
side
chamber
conversation.
"Sometimes talking with Eddie
a stone in a well except that
On
thump when
introspective a
is
hits
and pur-
some enigmatic
who might
no emotional
it
page dated Wednes-
29, 1950, a grea*: blot of ink stands out like
test.
ink bottle to
when Edward shunned
crisis
be tempted to
—
just reversing
for filling fountain pen."^
/
XI
EDWARD HOPPER
/
On a typical day, Jo began by complaining of her week shut in
New
Read Reader Dig. & Radio out of tune
Yorker
too. E. has
.
.
with
;.„
a cold:
not like reading a fine book
.
made such
sketches at a burlesque
&
is
juggling with advisability of attempting a canvas, but wants to see
more
things
clearly
fore starting off.
&
reads
me
bits
bed anymore
Ed
—wants
to
make
sure he
reading a translation of Paul Valerie Criticism
is
on Beaudelaire & Stendahl. E. does not want
—wants
to
up & then
sit
leaps
vitamins he's taking Benzarine, Cebeose
up and
really interested be-
is
Never wants
read, read, read.
&
up at 7
—must be
Bottalin.
to talk
.
.
.
to
go
places, but
I
do
passing of hours, days, weeks,
the
to
those
about anything. Try it.
Not
like to look at people or discuss
stances as they are, not like him, a clout with
Not only
all
go
E wants to sit
devise ways of making our lives gayer, "richer" D. calls
need
to
to
that
I
circum-
no consciousness of the
lives."*
man from The New Yorker pursued
in vain the secrets
of life
chez Hopper. Would-be chroniclers multiplied as Edward's reputation grew.
The
Jo. She made way of those who hoped
invaders had to confront not only his storied reticence but
herself notorious for the obstacles she threw in the to write
about her husband. Purposefully, energetically, and with
his full
complicity, she engineered his legend as a recluse. All the while, she kept
fill-
ing the diaries with the detailed personal record that would permit the kind
of biography both she and he approved. In their opinions about the requirements for biography, the couple con-
verged for once. Jo was defying an outsider could
"the real story."
tell
artists' lives
in a i960 interview
sively
with the
nerve.
He
I
openness to
—
all is
a tribute to
of
artists
jumped spell
would be
valuable." Evidently she touched a
to set her straight
and pushed on with uncharac-
out a tenet of his faith about
their character
—whether weak
He once explained
to
didn't
The man's
mean
the work.
that,
and
same thought years
it is
in the art
was
a
theme Hopper
Selden Rodman: "Originality
of inventiveness nor method
deeper than
art: "I
that.
or strong, whether emotional
Some-
come out of nothing."^
The importance of the man ter
Katharine Kuh. She provoked him
written by people very close to them.
thing doesn't
peatedly.
off another outsider and asserted that
by claiming he had "suggested that a book dealing exclu-
lives
virtually
meant with
or cold
she claimed that only she
should be "written by people very close to them." That Hopper
expressed his opinion at
teristic
Edward put
when
—
in particular a fashionable
the essence of personality."^
earlier at a
moment
is
stressed re-
neither a mat-
method.
It is
Hopper had voiced
far
the
of personal triumph. In 1933, for the
Truth and Pain catalogue of his
first
retrospective at the
Museum
beheve that the great painters, with their force this unwilling tions.
medium
find any digression
I
conviction surfaced again
to be the best
of Modern Art, he wrote:
"I
have attempted
to
intellect as master,
of paint and canvas into a record of their emo-
from
this large
aim leads
when Hopper was asked do not
certain subjects over others: "I
them
xiii
I
mediums
exactly
me
to boredom."'^
to explain
know, unless
for a synthesis of
my
why that
it is
The
he chose I
believe
inner experience."^
This belief in the personal grounding of his art links Hopper to the con-
mode
fessional
of certain writers
among
his contemporaries.
through
his
work
suggests analogies with
what occurs
particularly in writers like Marcel Proust, all
of
whom Hopper
and uneasy figures itual crisis
manner
in
Hopper,
read.
too,
is
modern
in
literature,
Thomas Mann, and Andre
Gide,
one of the disaffected. His lonely
everyday situations and
within the framework of
Hopper belongs
His search for personal expression
to the tradition of spiritual autobiography.'^
common settings suggest "spir-
realistic characters, real places" in the
typical of modernism."^'
Believing in art as a
medium
for inner experience.
Hopper
naturally
away whenever pressed to comment on the content of his own work. To speak would have risked putting his innermost emotions on display. Many an shied
interviewer was sent packing in frustration.
and
persistent partisan,
per's
work, was kept
at
Even Lloyd Goodrich,
his early
who organized two retrospective exhibitions of Hoparm's length.
Hopper's defenses were more subtle in the case of the chronicler
at
home.
He knew perfectly well that Jo was keeping diaries. She made no secret of the fact. They were enough of a fixture in her life to provoke his teasing. An ironic attack
dahl" that
on
diarists
Edward
comes
in just those bits
about "Beaudelaire and Sten-
chose to read her from the essays by Valery.
It
must have
been with a certain sardonic glee that he purveyed to the house diarist
marks
like the following:
The
authors of confessions or memoirs or private diaries are invari-
ably taken in by their
dupes of such dupes. sent;
we know
us about else
who
It is
desire to shock;
more
never one's self that anyone wants to pre-
is.
really true,
confesses
which
little
to tell
He therefore writes the confessions of somebody
impressive, purer, blacker,
and ever more himself than
Anyone who
and we ourselves are the
perfectly well that a real person has very
what he is
own
is
is
is
livelier,
more
permissible, for the self has
a liar
and
is
sensitive,
its
degrees.
running away from what
something null or shapeless and,
is
in general,
blurred. But every confession has an ulterior motive: fame, scandal,
an excuse, or propaganda.''
re-
EDWARD HOPPER
xiv
/
Wicked Edward! Poor Valery ascribed. So
Yet she gives
Jo!
much
sign of the ulterior motives
little
of what she wrote impressed not even herself. She
never rereads and regroups, focuses and builds. Even in the end, she took no
The
thought to arrange, preserve, or publish.
The
old metal box. ple
were found stored
diaries
in
an
writing served as an outlet for that desire to "look at peo-
and discuss circumstances" which she found
no consciousness" of a husband. Her
chatter,
so lacking in her "clout with
day
in
and day
some
out, filled
of the emptiness and sometimes vented the bitterness and pain. Protective as
Hopper was about his
the prospects of later fame for
artists:
privacy in
he was skeptical about
life,
"Ninety percent of them are forgotten
more than
ten minutes after they're dead."'" Nevertheless, his lack of
ironic
awareness of Jo's diaries goes beyond mere generic diffidence. Edward could not imagine that anything Jo produced might have a significant impact. Yet the diaries a
grew
importance
in
foreword during a
trip
in
such an effusion, only
been written &
think
I
it
God
will not please
will be
him
to write
"Record of a woman's
his response:
wandering mind & wandering thru the U.S. & Mex. There tification for
Edward
her mind. She even asked
and recorded
is
no excuse or
jus-
allowed to see what has there
greatly."'^
Secure in his
own
sar-
donic humor, he took for granted that the diaries would have no interest and
Not
man
no
real public.
let
alone censor, what she might choose to record.
she provided the
the last
means
underestimate
someone
for
"the real story of Edward
to
to discover
Jo,
he
He
what
Hopper" reckoning with
felt
left it
no need
the
to
know,
way open and
would
entail to
tell
the viewpoint of someone
really "very close."
By way of
story material, the diaries offer long
repetitive stretches of daily
movements or
inaction, but then
paintings planned or executed together appear, and the
meant by "emotional
crisis"
—
The
passions and conflicts
interviewers and friends.
As
unique
facts like
moments of what
she
the bursts of resentful hurt. Often facts can be
checked and corroborated, sometimes through cussed the couple.
and often tiresomely
years
wore on,
letters in
which intimates
came through only
Jo
dis-
too often to
would pause more and more
frequently to look back and take stock. By and large her recollections, too,
now and
turn out to have been reliable, although
then she confused dates or
confiated events. Reliability, bolstered by repeated verifications, lends credibility to the rest.
The
general reliability of the diaries
sence, even willful destruction, of
temporaries were
left to
nearly eighty-five.
No children
on both ments
sides
were
to history by
many
is
be interviewed
childless
resulted
and
especially
welcome, given the ab-
other sources of evidence.
when Hopper
Few
con-
died in 1967, aged
from the marriage. The
already dead. But these are
comparison with what happened next.
sole siblings
minor impedi-
Truth and Pain
At Edward's death, ing her
own
go
his art
Jo inherited everything. Virtually blind,
death, she was in
ill,
and
fac-
no condition to alter her husband's wish that
Whitney Museum of American
to the
XV
I
Art.
native, she included in the bequest the bulk of her
Lacking
a viable alter-
own work
as well, al-
though she disliked and distrusted the Whitney. To Lloyd (joodrich personally, she willed the record
books of Edward's work she had kept metic-
ulously for years.
Comprising more than three thousand paintings, drawings, watercolors, and prints of Edward's alone,
seum by March
surprise.
when
19, 1971,
tire artistic estate
to say
a
Whitney
of the
late
press release
announced the
Edward Hopper"
gift
of "the en-
collectors
market
and other museums
eventually."''^
Jo's
asset
for the future of the bequest soon appeared.
Goodrich, the museum's advisory director, told The
want
until
—with no mention of
work. The Whitney's director, John L H. Baur, called the collection "an
beyond valuation." Plans
mu-
nothing of Jo's, the bequest took the
Almost three years passed from the time of Jo's death
have access to
to
Denouncing as
a scandal this
New it,
Yor\ Times,
so we'll put
it
"We
on the
"contemplated disposal of
Hopper bequest," the Times critic Hilton Kramer characterized the museum as "a major institution suffering from ... a feeble sense of its own identity and purpose." Kramer accused the Whitney of trying to destroy the value of the bequest as a permanent archive.'^ Baur retorted that the Whitney had the
itself
not yet reached a decision on what part of the bequest
Some
up by Lloyd Goodrich
as late as
drawings
selling twenty-five
it
would
drawings during the 1920s
June
6,
—even
at the
1974, indicates that
A
keep.'^'
drawn he recommended
including etchings and watercolors.
sales did take place,
list
though Hopper had produced these
museum's forerunner,
the
Whitney Studio
Club. Eventually, under the pressure of intense public scrutiny and growing indignation, the
The
museum
stopped selling items from the bequest.
controversy over sales only scratched the surface of disregard for the
nature and value of the bequest as a permanent archive. lic
record gives no hint of the
began when finition, a
I
started
full
work on
extent of history's
To
loss.
this
day the pub-
My own
awareness
a catalogue raisonne of Hopper in 1976.
By de-
catalogue raisonne employs methodical scholarship to gather and
form
digest in systematic
Beginning the project
all
at the
that can be
known
museum, I expected
of an
artist's
to find
work and
life.
Hopper's papers,
in-
cluding the letters he kept, the photographs, books, and phonograph records that he
and
his wife
tural activity.
anyone rectly
else
I
owned:
in short the
searched in vain. Soon
I
evidence of his intellectual and cullearned that neither Goodrich nor
from the museum had sought
from Jo
after
Edward's death,
The opportunity had been missed
to
to obtain this material, either di-
or, later,
from the executor of her
estate.
conserve basic materials for a history of
EDWARD HOPPER
and
the artist
his production. This, despite the fact that in 1964 Jo
Whitney
the subject of "pack rats" to Margaret McKellar of the
when
museum was producing
the
hibition during
Edward's
life:
—when
mother gave them
might not
me. She
a
pack
with
Of
course
I
keep
mother from French people
E.
such a very good boy in 1906. His
rat too."'^
the dearth of expected documents, a different lack began
emerge. In going through the Hopper collection, Edward's.
as well as
time
like to be associated
antiquarian.
letters to his
in Paris to say E.
to
Compounding to
rats
—however honorably —
the Rat Family even
wrote on
at the
the catalogue for the last retrospective ex-
"Pack
everything from way, way back stayed with
xvi
/
I
had read James Mellow's
I
expected to see
Jo's art
article in the Times, describ-
ing canvases by Jo in the bequest as "generally pleasant, lightweight works: flowers, sweet-faced children, gaily colored scenic views. "'*^ But ing. his
and the
I
Dealing with the bequest, Baur naturally looked for advice
immediate predecessor
Goodrich,
and Hopper's recognized interpreter
as director
Together Baur and Goodrich rejected
friend.
found nothto
Jo's
work
unworthy of
as
museum. They arranged for some of her paintings to be given away; they rest. They saw no need to invest even in archival pho-
simply discarded the
now
tographs. Ironically, the only paintings from this group that can traced are four that
Hoppers
for years
went
to
New
be
York University, which had troubled the
with efforts to evict them from their home.
all,
only three works by Jo were added to the Whitney's permanent
collection.
None was ever exhibited. All three had disappeared by the time I in 1976. None has ever turned up. Others managed to escape de-
In
began work
few of Jo's drawings,
struction by passing as Edward's: these included a eral early small oil paintings, as his. late
and some watercolors,
As curator of the Hopper
John Clancy,
This picture,
to give the
collection,
museum
Edward painted by Jo. Hopper at the museum, has never
collection.
and drawings are known only by photographs lifetime.
The
sole survivors are a
The men cance, but not
at the all
her, Brian
the
Whitney took
who
also
became
bones about the tension
women in the
Today, most of Jo's paintings that she
had taken during her
for granted that Jo's
any
Her
work had no
qualities
Verstille
artist
marriage:
Concerning
Nivison Hopper was one of
ever married."''^
"He and
signifi-
had not escaped
a friend in her last years.
O'Doherty wrote, "Josephine
most extraordinary
of
few works she sold or gave away.
opinion was so shortsighted.
the one interviewer
sev-
mistakenly identified
convinced Hopper's dealer, the
a portrait
now the only mature oil by Jo
been accessioned for the permanent
I
all
He
also
made no
she were so opposed to each
other in temperament that they were a continuous source of life and dismay to
each other. Opinions are
much
divided as to her
role.
One view
holds that
Mrs. Hopper persecuted her husband. Another claims that she stung him
to
Truth and Pain life."'"
A
still
view of the
must
more
first
xvH
/
incisive estimate
exhibition from the
of Jo appeared
Hopper
in
receive considerable attention in future
O'Doherty's 1971
He
bequest.
Hopper
The
studies.
quest reveals that the sinewy, female bodies in the paintings
longed to his wife,
who devoted
re-
wrote that she
Bebe-
all
herself to insuring that her husband's
exposure to mankind in general (of which she had a low opinion)
would be kept within Josephine
with a
Hopper
farcical
woman
own
the boundaries of her
person. Since
had wit but no humor, she has hitherto been treated
indulgence which she herself invited. But she was a
of genuine
if
frustrated talents, extremely well-read,
and
at
her best a brilliant and eccentrically original conversationalist.^'
My
O'Doherty's prescription for Hopper studies proved prescient. search went on to demonstrate
Edward's. Not only did she least
how
insist
Jo's activity as
on modeling
an
artist
for his
nudes
—
that
was the
of it. She, like him, had studied painting with Robert Henri at the
York School of Art. Starting
in courtship, she
Often they used the same studio or worked suffered
from
painter's block, as frequently
into action by beginning to paint
and the laborious
first.
and he made
at the
same
in
ignored
When
he
happened, she would goad him
They shared
the routines of every day
travels north or west or south in quest of subjects.
French. With her help his career took wing.
when
New
art together.
locations.
They
sorbed and discussed the same books, plays, and films, exchanging
doux
re-
intertwined with
Her
ab-
billets-
career withered,
not discouraged by him. As she recorded and remembered, her
resentment welled up again and again. It is
time, then, to
acknowledge Jo Hopper's
role not only as her hus-
who The "whole story"
band's wife and model, but as the intellectual peer and fellow painter
both stimulated and challenged her more gifted colleague.
needs them both together. There tea parties laced
with
bitter pain.
be worthy of a tragic narrator. core of his
work and
is
her chronicle of paintings, quarrels, and
There
is
her challenge that the truth would
No less there is Edward's belief in the personal
his resulting evasive posture. Together, their testimony
suggests a story of acute anguish in personal
The
life
transmuted into gripping
art.
pain and the craft create the uncanny tension through which his paint-
ings speak. Their pictorial idiom, at once familiar
memories, hopes, uncertainties
—
and estranged, touches our
the yearning and disquiet of modern lives.
^^
TH[ ROOTS OF
MFLICT: 1lil!Hil99
THE ROOTS OF Edward Hopper reach back to the old Dutch settlements that punctuate the
The
River. ties,
where
wooded
and promontories along the lower Hudson
bluffs
conflict in his character mirrors the tension in those local
and
ogy and science and
new waves
the end of the Victorian age
communi-
opened by technol-
traditional values faced the horizons
of migration. Hopper's childhood spanned
and the dawn of the new century with
its
mo-
mentous disruptions and displacements. The decade of the i88os saw great and
scientific
social transformations:
mercial electric lights the
first
At
made
their
Hopper was born in New York. New York with
debut
telephone line would connect
the time of Edward's birth on July 22, 1882, his
counted
a
just
home town
of Nyack
population of about four thousand. Light manufacturing included
and pianos. Service industries flourished,
and
resort
development along the
Nyack was considered
was no
a healthful resort.
threat of malarial mosquitoes.
promontory of Hook Mountain offered was cut
com-
Less than a year later
lated to tourism
there
after
Chicago.
shoes, carriages,
as 1872,
weeks
in the
river.'
The
especially those re-
Incorporated as
streets
Nearby on the Hudson
a noble prospect.
late
were paved and the
At "the pond,"
winter and recreation such as boating was available
all
ice
sum-
mer. Along the river affluent captains of industry lived in elaborate Victorian elegance.
The
area had been populated primarily by people of
Dutch
extrac-
/
3
EDWARD HOPPER
4
/
when more
tion well into the 1820s,
New
began arriving from
Jersey,
settlers,
New
York
including Hopper's forebears, City,
and abroad.
When
immigrants came, they included refugees from the potato famine
Change in Nyack had begun in earnest when the railroad linked York City in 1870. Growing rail traffic in both passengers and
New
prompted an upgrading of the
it
with
freight
The improvements
country roads.
local
later
in Ireland.^
also
caused dislocation, gradually driving out of business the local steamboat lines
and the industry that remained
during Edward's boyhood, the port
built the boats. Still,
relatively prosperous
and
a thriving shipyard turned out racing
The last riverboats steamed up and down and across the Hudson. The could spend Saturdays "in the Nyack shipyards where he studied the
yachts.
lad
building and rigging of yachts with a boy's enthusiastic attention to detail," reported Alfred Barr, six
Edward
learned to
community
to gain
While rowing with and
fell
notice a
was no stunt
at the
same time
"The boys got
paper.
from
on Hackensack Creek.
a boating accident
chum, Ralph
Bedell, he attempted to take off his coat
overboard, capsizing the boat. For once his height stood him in good
stead: "It
and
interviewed Hopper in 1933.^ When only five or row on Rockland Lake, the local "pond." He went on
who
for
Edward
to stand
to lend a helping
up and keep
hand
a wetting, but no further
his
head out of water
to Ralph," reported the local
damage was
done.""* In
deeper
Edward excelled at swimming and enjoyed it all his life.^ Edward and his friends, Harold Green, Louis Blauvelt, and Harry Mac Arthur, spent much of their free time near the docks or on the river, particularly at John P. Smith's boatyard at the foot of Fourth Avenue.^ The Bapwater,
tist
minister's daughter, Lois Saunier,
coming
friends
Zee, where the
to
borrow her
remembered
father's boat.^
Hudson River broadens
Nyack, and Croton Point, ten miles Eddie and three
pals
the lanky boy
They would
sail
and
his
on the Tappan
out between Irvington, south of
to the north.^
formed the Boys' Yacht Club,
for
which he designed
plaques with the names of the members' boats: one version sported Glorianna,
Mary
M., and Bubble, which were traditionally feminine, but upbeat and in-
nocuous.*^
Edward's choice, Water Witch, telegraphs
Water-Witch, James Fenimore Cooper's 1830 novel,
his love tells
how
of books. The the "exploits,
mysterious character, and daring of the Water-Witch, and of him
who
her, were, in that day, the frequent subjects of anger, admiration, prise.
.
.
.
All
ments were ship
is
a
wondered
at the success
and
intelligence with
controlled."'^ Also, Cooper's character
seaman's mistress.""
Where
the
title
Tom
sailed
and sur-
which her move-
Tiller declares,
"A
of Edward's fantasy suggests
derring-do and mastery even in the mystery of sex, the boat he actually built
was something from
his father,
else.
At age
fifteen
he received the
wood and
but the resulting cat boat "wasn't very good,"
tools as a gift its
maker
re-
The Roots of Conflict: 1 882-1 8()g called. "I
had put the center board well too
wind very well."'" for scrap.'
Up
^
One
in the attic
he once related:
thought
am
at
interested in boats, but
The middle ter,
"I
and she wouldn't
on North Broadway, Edward
drawings
in
I
far aft
story held that the boat sank, another that
which he depicted
as the vessel of the Indians.
one time
I'd like to
it
up-
sail
was
sold
also built a canoe,
To an
interviewer
be a naval architect because
got to be a painter instead."'^
I
circumstances of Edward's immediate family were comfortably
He was
class.
the
and only
first
son, but the second child; his sole sis-
Marion Louise, had been born on August
was marked by dominance on the female
1880.
8,
Their parents' marriage
When
side.
Garret Henry Hopper,
twenty-six, married Elizabeth Griffiths Smith, twenty-three, on 1879, the
5
/
ceremony took place
March
26,
house where Elizabeth grew up and the
in the
new couple
settled there
since Garret
had no means of providing an independent dwelling. The home
under the wing of Elizabeth's widowed mother,
on North Broadway was a constant reminder that Elizabeth had married
less
Her father, John DeWint Smith, had built the house on coming to Nyack six years after their marriage in 1852. Smith
well than her mother. for his wife
had
also acquired
DeWints, owned to a
two other houses
historic houses in
who had
Edward, Martha
rived the
Griffiths
from providing
community. Her
their
age seventy-two, girl
Reverend Joseph W. Griffiths
and stuck
in the
Edward Hopper
young man
in a
foundry. In the
in his twenties
new
to
lit-
just the authority de-
home. She was the daughter of a moral force
father, the
in
Nyack
memory
still
— Lozier— when he came
as a
Hopper and grandmother
Smith wielded more than
had organized the Baptist congregation a part of family lore
French
their origin
emigrated from the Caribbean
Thomas.
In her roles as mother-in-law to Garret tle
his mother's family, the
Tappan. The DeWints traced
wealthy sugar plantation owner
island of St.
Nyack, and
in
in 1854.
(i
His story became
of his great-grandson: even
spoke of the ancestor
who
to
at
"married a
to America."'^ In fact, Griffiths
from England
in
782-1 860),
came
New York, where he worked
surroundings, Griffiths
Anglican origins for
left his
He became a Baptist, founded a Sunday School, and soon He had retired from a long career when he helped to propagate the Baptist persuasion in Nyack. The woman he married was Elizabeth Lozier, descended from Le Sueurs, Huguenots who came to
an evangelical
was
sect.
called to the ministry.
America from Dieppe
in 1657.
Their Protestant heritage led them
Dutch Reformed Church and they soon simplified recognition.'^'
Yet
when Edward remembered
their
the story, he thought of his
great-grandmother as "French," emphasizing the trace his favorite culture.
icans I'm an
Another time, he
amalgam of many
told Katharine
races.
Perhaps
to the
French name beyond
all
in his family tree
of
Kuh: "Like most Amer-
of them influenced
me
EDWARD HOPPER
/
6
me
John DeWint Smith, Edward's maternal grandfather.
Martha
Griffiths Smith,
Edward's maternal grandmother.
Dutch, French, possibly some Welsh. Hudson River Dutch
dam
—not Amster-
Dutch."^'
The namesake and granddaughter of
Elizabeth Lozier Griffiths, Ed-
ward's mother Elizabeth, was born to Martha Griffiths and John Smith in Blauvelt,
New York, before her parents moved
where
of them lived and died and where
all
to Nyack and built the house Edward grew up. Elizabeth en-
joyed the privilege of attending private school at the Rockland Female Acad-
emy. She was remembered
as "full of
generous, witty, handsome, gay of
spirit,
charm and
a
complete extrovert,
natural hostess, always full of con-
cern for friends."'^ Expressive of her feelings, she was said to "rave"
when
she was angry.''^ Elegant, feminine, yet formidable-looking, she wore her
long hair swept up in a chignon. those that
made
A
photograph shows strong features
her son a distinctive subject for portraits. He,
when
her portrait, emphasized her determined stare. Elizabeth showed her
with children
when
daughter recalled:
the
new
like
painting skill
minister arrived at the Baptist church, as his
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8()g
Our
great favorite
was
a delightful white-haired lady
beth Hopper. As soon as
we
call
her "Auntie"
I
we became
named
7
Eliza-
acquainted, she suggested that
Hopper which we were glad
to do.
She was
such fun to be with, always ready to laugh and joke with us and take interest in a doll,
On
what we were doing. To
seemed
to give her as
the paternal side,
farmers,
more
turely, sey,
as
game of tag or
pleasure as
it
did
help us dress
us.'"
Edward's family had been prosperous traders and
exclusively Dutch.
in fifteenth-century
in 1652,
much
join a
There were Hoppen mayors and aldermen to New Amsterdam When he died premachildren went to New Jer-
Amsterdam. Andries Hoppen came
where he succeeded
aged only thirty-three,
in shipping his
and
widow and
trade.
five
where they flourished around Hackensack and Ho-ho-kus, once known
Hopper Town. Edward's great-grandfather Christian, born in Paramus on April 17, 1851. Although
married Charity Blauvelt
Elizabeth Lozier Griffiths,
Edward's maternal great grandmother.
Reverend Joseph W. Griffiths,
Edward's maternal
great-grandfather.
in
1826,
Charity's
EDWARD HOPPER parents, the cousins
Abraham
Blauvelt
(i
789-1 864) and Marie Blauvelt
(1793-1882), came from a Dutch family, they baptized their daughter in the Methodist church of Waldwick, New Jersey, turning to the evangeHcal sect
Thus the strains of a rigorous evangelical Protestantism took over from more established religious traditions in both sets of Edward's great-grandparents. The effects were felt even to the third
of EngHsh working-class
origin.^'
generation.
Evangelical austerity displaced the
Dutch
settlers in the
new world had
more
way of
festive
This
is
why Hopper emphasized that not Amsterdam Dutch."
"Hudson River Dutch
the early
kept up in the style of the old world tav-
erns of genre painters like Jan Steen. Beer and rough vorites.
life
—
games had been
fa-
he was descended from
Baptized into the sobriety
of the Methodist church. Charity Blauvelt Hopper remained a forbidding figure
all
said he it
her
life:
Edward, writing home from the
wanted no more
must be admitted
letters
relative liberty of Paris,
from such disagreeable old
that Charity's
life
ladies. In fairness,
was unlucky and hard. Her husband
Christian died on April 20, 1854, in an accident with a runaway horse their son
was only two years
New York
Unlike Andries Hoppen
City to live with her parents,
ther Blauvelt died
in the first
not leave his heirs secured. Charity took the
tion, Christian did
to
old.
when the boy was work to support
education and go to
Abraham and
when
genera-
little
Garret
Marie. ^^ Grandfa-
him to curtail widowed mother. Barred from
only twelve, forcing
his
his
his
natural talent for study, lacking the commercial knack of his ancestors, de-
Hopper
prived of paternal guidance, Garret
brought him
to
drifted until a further chance
Nyack and a strong mooring with Elizabeth Griffiths Smith. Hopper went into business in Nyack; four years later, he
In 1878 Garret
identified himself on ret ily
Edward's birth
certificate as
"Salesman. "^^ In 1890, Gar-
purchased Morris and Minnerly, a dry goods store not
home. In the shop, which became known
as
ter
from the
sold men's
fabrics
Hopper made
from the fam-
"G. H. Hopper," he sold table
linens, towels, fabrics, notions, kid gloves, hosiery,
items of clothing. Elizabeth
far
underwear, and other
dresses for herself and her
procured by her husband.
and boys' underwear may account
The
fact that
for the
young Edward's other-
wise inexplicably detailed reports on the condition of his underwear
wrote
letters
home. Garry,
as people called
fairs.
He wore
bled
Thomas G. Masaryk,
recalled.
a short, pointed
first
polite,
with a large
gracious person.
circle "^^
a
in
when he
community
af-
mustache; he resem-
president of Czechoslovakia, his son
At the end. Garret was remembered
nial disposition,
most
the
him, was active
Van Dyck beard and
daugh-
"G. H. Hopper"
as "kind-hearted
of friends."'^
He was
and of a ge-
also reputedly "the
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8gg
I
^djWii
9
^^.{^GSL
Christian Hopper, Edward's
paternal grandfather.
Charity Blauvelt Hopper,
Edward's paternal grandmother.
Garret made every effort to Nyack Evening Journal and in the iliary at the
succeed.
He
advertised regularly in the
Fair Journal, published by the ladies' aux-
YMCA. He promoted business with periodic sales, claiming to New York City prices." (The metropolis at the other end of
offer the "lowest
the
rail line
was already undercutting
local
autonomy.)
He enlarged
his busi-
ness in April 1892, buying out his local competitor, William O. Blauvelt. But
Garret's heart forty-nine,
was not
when
in
his son
commerce.
He
closed shop about 1901, aged only
was already studying
Garret Hopper's failure to
live
up
in the city.
to his forebears' mercantile
prowess
did not undermine the household's standard of living, thanks to the inheritance of his wife,
who owned and
received rents from
mortgages on other properties. Upon Edward's birth built a
new wing onto
they enlarged the
two houses and held in 1882, the
Hoppers
the north side of their home. About two years
wing with
a
later,
second story and bay window. They frequently
redecorated, paid for repairs and yard work, and sent their laundry out to be
EDWARD HOPPER
done.
They
/
also ran charge accounts with the local grocer, butcher, baker,
confectionery, ble. In
and they hired horses and carriages from
keeping with
and
Blauvelt's Livery Sta-
employed an
this lifestyle, they also
10
maid from the
Irish
population of newer immigrants.
Comfortable circumstances permitted private school Marion, as for their mother
before."^'
Then
Liberty Street. Eddie was a prankster. classic
torment
when
in times
ion, as the elder,
Edward and
for
they went to the public school on
He dipped girls' braids in
inkwells, the
every desk in school held a supply of ink. Mar-
remembered
was
that he
when
"a dreadful tease"
when
Lois Saunier described a mortifying occasion
litde.^^
she was the Hoppers'
guest for Sunday dinner.
When we were
Marion
the table, with the daughter
opposite me.
I
Hopper was
ready to eat Auntie
had been seated on
at the
seated at one end of
Ed was
other and
a hassock
which was on
seated
a dining
room chair, a napkin tied around my neck, grace had been said and we were ready to eat. At this point Ed decided to have a bit of fun fun for him, that
is
—
curled his feet around
went down with and injuring
my
laugh so
I
under the
my
pull.
hassock and gave a quick
a bang, hitting
knew
my
for consolation but
that
the day
knowing he
Marion Hopper
him
call
else.
I
looked to Marion
that they
were trying not
as a joke, tho'
a
bad boy
him "Eddie"
was
I
truly
do such
to all
a
the rest of
also recalled that her brother "couldn't stand
spirits
I
disliked the name.^^
win every game he entered ward's high
would
she
it
Ed was
embarrassed. Auntie Hopper said thing and to punish
saw
must take
too
I
table,
Of course
chin lightly on the table's edge
more than anything
vanity
and Auntie Hopper to
so he stretched his long legs
into
—
it
if
he didn't
checkers, whatever children played.
"^"^
Ed-
paid off in schoolwork, as attested by a surviving report
card from January 1890,
when he was
only seven: he received a grade of
ninety for his numbers, but scored a perfect one hundred for geography, reading, spelling, punctuality,
and behavior,
When Edward moved up
to
for
an overall average of ninety-eight.
Nyack High School on
elementary school, he did not maintain such standards.
on the
New
York
State Regents Examinations only in
the top floor of the
He
received honors
drawing and plane
geometry. Although there were then no art classes in Nyack schools, Edward's ability to draw came in handy at least once, recalled his
sister,
stymied for words to answer a question on an exam, he illustrated pressing and satisfying his teacher.^"
won
credit for encouraging him.
No
when, it,
im-
particular teacher, however, ever
His French notebooks
attest to his diligence
The Roots
ofCorjflict:
i882-i8gg
I
II
all
his
Elizabeth Grijfiths Smith,
Edward's mother.
Garret Henry Hopper,
Edward's father.
in studying the life.
He
language that he
later
knew
well and continued to read
also studied spelling, reading, geography, writing, English, U.S. his-
tory, arithmetic, algebra,
German,
botany, zoology, and economics.
THE HOPPER FAMILY did travcl out of Nyack, taking trains and ferryboats to New York City to attend cultural events, although Nyack also had its
own
opera house and a hall for other performances.
The Hoppers even
kept scrapbooks of the operas and plays they attended. (Edward's father's
first
cousin Lillian Blauvelt was an accomplished opera singer.) Sports too interested the family.
As an
marking: "Used
to
go
Hopper took Eddie in rented
Hopper expressed some interest in baseball, regame once in a while when was a boy."^' Garret
adult, to a
to visit his relatives in
equipment
as they did not
Each August, the family spent Christian religious
I
own a
camp meetings of
Ridgewood, their
own
week on
New Jersey, traveling
horse and buggy.
the Jersey shore,
where the
the 1870s had evolved into
summer
colonies where no liquor was allowed and evangelical "surf meetings" at-
EDWARD HOPPER tracted devout crowds. In 1895,
Lodge
stayed at the Sunset
Norwood time
in
when Edward was
Ocean Grove;
Edgemere
Inn.^" Inspired
up the
just
the following year they were at
The Sunday
these trips.
of the year. Hopper's parents sent
rest
Sunday
street to the Baptist
grandfather Griffiths.
by the change of scene, as he often
Edward made drawings on
in later years,
For religious education during the
him
Hoppers
thirteen, the
Hall in Asbury Park, to which they returned in 1897, staying this
at the
would be
12
/
school, in the tradition of Great-
afternoon classes taught the gospels, tem-
perance, and the whole range of moral discipline: values ingrained in
Edward, especially to
frugality
and the willingness
mention emotional reticence and sexual
As
ment
strict Baptists,
the
postpone gratification, not
to
inhibition.^^
Hoppers could be expected
to discipline their children.
Their church,
to use corporal punish-
like generations
cal Protestants, cited biblical rationales for the use
of the
of evangeli-
rod.^"*
No
direct
He
evidence proves that Edward's pranks ever provoked a thrashing.
did,
however, in adulthood develop symptoms of depression like those sometimes traced to overzealous punishment in childhood: pression
is
and
that often de-
"a delayed response to the suppression of childhood anger that
usually results adults
some argue
whom
from being physically
the child loves
life itself."^^
and woodshed
Whether
to
check
and on
hit
and hurt
whom
in the act of discipline
by
he or she depends for nurturance
or not the mild Garret resorted to the razor strop
his son's prankishness,
in adolescence of the introverted nature that
Edward showed
would become
his
signs already
trademark
as
an adult.
The decade of Hopper's American
history.^^
adolescence, the 1890s, was a "watershed" in
Seen with hindsight, the "gay nineties" mark the passage
from the strong moral principles of
rural
and small-town America
into the
beginning of urban and industrial development that eroded traditional ways of life and produced growing alienation. Across the nation, Americans were facing a challenge to their most basic assumptions and beliefs.^' These
changes had
were by
their
little
effect
on Garret and Elizabeth Hopper, insulated
economic security and
as they
religious principles. Indeed, the nineties
saw Garret Hopper not only befriend
the minister but twice serve as a church
trustee.
Neither precept nor example sufficed to transmit a confident
ward. Growing up
ill
the religion-centered
faith to
Ed-
at ease and feeling different, he took his distance from
community by becoming a
approvingly of a couple who, having
skeptic. Late in
life,
he spoke
finally formalized their alliance with a
church ceremony, proceeded to rear their
first
child as a Catholic, the second
as a Protestant, and the third as a Jew.^^ Skepticism had personal and social roots.
By the time he was about twelve
years old,
Edward had suddenly
shot
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8gg
I
'^
Eddie at the Liberty Street School, Nyac\ (seated on the left in the second
up
to over six feet.
from
row from
the front).
His height and skinny, awkward physique
his contemporaries.
"Grasshopper" they taunted him
discomfort reinforced a mind-set already independent. tary pursuits. a private
He had
and unique
when he promoted
the
Garret's most profound and
father himself and failing to live role,
what with
his
him
scheme of the
develop his
gift,
although his
outdoor
ill-fated cat boat.
The good, Garret never having known a
lasting influence took place indoors.
up
male
to conventional expectations of the
meek demeanor and
his wife,
to
too reclusive, also tried to suggest
prognosis for paternal imprint was not
shadowed by
He took refuge in soli-
with the world confidently on terms more
ability to deal
concerned that the boy was
activity, as
him apart
discovered early his talent for drawing. In art he found
nearly his own. Both parents encouraged father,
set
at school. Social
lack of business
acumen,
all
over-
with her inherited moral authority and wealth, her
hold on the purse strings, and her confident and outgoing character. Yet this very diffidence toward business
made
its
effect
on Edward, who used
to help
out in the store after school, and soon realized where his father's true passion lay:
"An
up,^'^
incipient intellectual
who
never quite
made
it,"
Edward
sized
him
opining that his father should have become a scholar, being that he was
less at
home with
ret set his
most
his
books of accounts than with Montaigne's
telling
example
to his son
through
his reading.
Essays.^^^
The
Gar-
boy read
EDWARD HOPPER
Eddie and his
avidly and always
English
^4
/
classics
remembered
and
a lot
sister,
his father's library as well stocked
of French and Russian in
Marion.
with "the
translation.'"^'
Edward of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who made
Citing Montaigne to exemplify his father's intellectual interests,
evokes a world shaped by the influence
Montaigne represent "the skeptic"
Men
(the other five
one of the
six essays in Representative
examples being Plato, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Goethe,
and Napoleon). Emerson was read tellectual pretensions
these
in
in
America by men of Garret Hopper's
and Emerson commended Montaigne's
words and they would
Emerson's representative
bleed; they are vascular
men
—
Plato, Shakespeare,
only figures of world literature that
Hopper ever
and
'"'^
and Goethe
Three of
— were
the
related to pictures he
painted. The concept of "the skeptic" provided a philosophical peg own development as he outgrew his religious upbringing. Although in the Puritan
"Cut
prose:
alive.
in-
background, Emerson rejected formal religion
for his
rooted
in favor
of in-
He traced an American rite of passage that Hophis own difficult transition. He had far to go from his
tuitive spiritual experience.
per could recognize in parents'
community of belief to
create a
foundly devoted to the search, through
Emerson's belief
in the
life
that
art, for
was
largely secular yet pro-
inner
truth."*^
For Hopper,
harmony of man and nature was fundamental,
pro-
The Roots of Conflict: 1 882-1 8gg
15
/
viding
a
matrix for his considered view that painting would eventually "at-
tempt
to
grasp again the surprise and accidents of nature, and a more intimate
and sympathetic study of its moods, together with a renewed wonder and huon the part of such
mility
as are
still
capable of these basic reactions.
For the situation of Garret Hopper and fection of Fathers" seems ironically apt: "It
is
his son,
'"^^
Montaigne's essay "Af-
right to leave the administration
of affairs to mothers while the children are not yet of legal age to take over on
own. But the father has brought them up very badly
their
more wisdom and
that at that age they will have
the ordinary weakness of the
common
sex."^^
ability
if
he cannot hope
than his wife, seeing
Affirmations of male superiority were as
writing as they were at variance with the reality of the
in serious
Hopper menage. Also
in
recalled by
vogue
at the
was
he
knew
in Paris:
of two sorts
to us
Sometimes,
—
him; sometimes
it is
process, he thinks of a conflict
came
melancholy and a wanton melancholy.
the problem, the question, the idea, that strikes
simply the
it is
Turgenev,
partial to
"M. Turgenev's pessimism," James argued, "seems
a spontaneous
in a sad story,
Howells soon
for the "reality" of his fic-
which "seem the truth always."^^ James remained
whom
American recep-
called his "dramatic or pictorial method.""*^
became an even more fervent proponent of Tolstoy tions,
two
Dean Howells and Henry James, who adver-
fostered by William
what they
tised
Tolstoy, the
novelists then translated. Turgenev's
most popular Russian tion
time were the "French and Russian in translation,"
Edward, who spoke of reading Turgenev and
picture.'"^^
As James
describes the narrative
between the "picture" and the
to define his art as a constant struggle to
ideas.
master the pictorial
in
Hopper order to
record inner truth.
The work of Turgenev thers
read most widely in America was the novel Fa-
and Sons ^^ Reading about
its
themes of conflict and love between gener-
may have offered a means of unspoken communication between Edward and his father.^" Garret Hopper appears, in the somewhat contemptuous caricatures and sketches produced by his son, as a man afraid of emo-
ations
tional expression.
He
literature he loved.
had
found a surrogate voice by urging on
Edward
his son the
took the lesson to heart. Extremely shy, he also
difficulty voicing his feelings.
Not only did he withdraw by
reading, but,
as an adult, he would often read aloud some literary passage that he admired
instead of direcdy uttering his
intimidating and
less
Among French
own emotions and
ideas.
He
means of communicating. Hopper knew Victor Hugo,
found
this a less
revelatory
novelists.
lustrated, being attracted especially to Les Miserables, with
and vivid descriptions of
Paris.
Other French
classics
whom its
he later
il-
dramatic twists
commonly
translated
EDWARD HOPPER
and read
in
vary (with
/
America
in
Hopper's youth were (justave
F'laubert's
Madame Bo-
unromanticized observation of life and nature and
its
/6
its
defiance
of convention), and Emile Zola's naturalistic novels of the Rougon-Macquart such as Nana. Further readings and sympathies can be inferred from
series,
illustrations
Hopper
eventually produced in art school: there were novels by
Charles Dickens, including Barnaby Rudge, Oliver Twist, Bleaf{ House, and Tale of
Two
Cities,
Brigadier Gerard.
from the cycle of soldier
also sketched
Rudyard Kipling's Private Mulvaney
made
stories that
made such an impression on an adult, he referred
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Exploits of
as well as Sir
Edward
its
author famous. Kipling's work
young Hopper
the
to the poetry.^^
A
that even
when he wrote
Nor can he have missed
as
Kipling's misog-
which could only reinforce prejudices gained elsewhere.
yny,
Hopper's legacy was
If Garret
pursued
art as a child,
literature, his wife's
was
papers. She took pride in a history of artists in her family.
and namesake, Elizabeth Lozier
Griffiths,
drawings survive from the 1830s.
had transplanted the family
and won election
to the
And
who
Her grandmother
had a brother, Jacob Lozier, whose
Francois Le Sueur, a
America two years
to
brother Eustache (1616-1655), jects
Elizabeth had
art.
and some of her drawings survived among the family
civil
engineer,
after the death of his
painted religious and mythological sub-
French Academy.
Both of Elizabeth's children drew from an early age and she saved
work,
much
ative efforts focused
brother.
their
of her son's and some of her less-gifted daughter's. Marion's cre-
As she
on staging puppet shows and
later told
plays, often assisted by her
an interviewer, "the paper
dolls with
played were not paper dolls cut out of magazines with which
which she
little girls
of her
day and succeeding generations have played," but objects that her brother, "often taken for her twin, said,
drew and
colored. "^^
Once after going to a
play, she
Edward
fashioned a model theater; another time, after a family excur-
Coney
Island, he built "a miniature pictorial fireworks display," pat-
sion to
terned after one seen on the
imagination
all
his
Theater would provide
a field for his
life.
Even when he was family "gave
trip.^^
"a tiny lad,"
Edward's
gift
was recognized and the
him every encouragement," Marion remembered.^^ He began
drawing at the age of five and board that became
for
Christmas
his first easel.^^'
at
age seven he received the black-
He made cutout
soldiers
and decorated the
cover of his paint box, which he inscribed prophetically "would-be artist."
When he was about ten, he was given books or magazines of drawing instruction.
For the next year or
so,
Edward
diligently practiced
drawing and
shading geometric shapes, such as spheres and cylinders, and objects, such as vases, bowls,
and boxes. Already these sketches
in charcoal
and white chalk
The Roots of Conflict: 1882-1899
I
n
/.^V
°
vr
Edward Hopper, Three Birds on on paper,
g'A
X 12V4" {2^.1
a '^vdinch^ signed
and dated May
Charcoal
25, iSg^.
cm.).
XJ2.4
focus on the importance of Hght, a concern that remained important to all
his Hfe.
He
also practiced
drawing
him
birds, horses, dogs, hunters, soldiers,
guns, athletes, trains, boats, and bells in church towers. For school, he pro-
duced particularly competent drawings
Hopper
Elizabeth
also
for
geography and zoology
stimulate and shape her children's imaginations. pieces from the Worlds
classes.
procured illustrated books and magazines to
A
deluxe edition, Master-
ofGustave Dore, was one of Edward's treasures.^^
Dore's illustration of The Enchantment of Don Quixote,
Edward
From
in his teens
copied the head of the Don. His later depictions of Quixote on horseback also
have been inspired by
may
this source.
Art supplies were never scarce in the Hopper home, thanks to a running charge account
at
Dutcher Brothers, the Nyack
ceipts for crayons, ink, chalk, paste, pens, as
books and magazines:
Harpers
(for reprints
Blacky
Cat
(fiction).
of British literature). Ladies*
Metropolitan, Munsey's, Quarterly Illustrator, dren), Strand,
stationer. Elizabeth
kept re-
pads of paper, and frames, as well
and Puc/{ (weekly humor and
St.
Cosmopolitan,
Delineator,
Home journal,
McClure's,
Nicholas (illustrated, for chil-
social commentary).''^
The
issue
EDWARD HOPPER
November name "eddie."
of Puc/{ for printed
By
i8
/
the age often,
quantity preserved
13, 1889,
contains doodles of heads in profile and the
Edward was
signing and dating drawings.
The
large
own enthusiasm and his mother's foreThe drawings document a childhood that
testifies to his
sighted appreciation of talent.
Hopper
barely referred to in interviews and for
records.
Some
realistic
rendition of brick shop fronts along
scenes
show remarkable
Brothers (the grocery store that the
which there are few written
sophistication
and anticipate
style.
A
North Broadway, with Callahan Hopper family patronized) and its deliv-
ery wagon, suggests the composition of his 1930 masterpiece, Early Sunday
made
Morning. Hopper
a clear compositional choice of a long horizontal for-
mat, preferring to leave blank the bottom of the page rather than draw a square picture.
A
restaurant interior populated with diners and waiters sug-
gests paintings of his maturity. Besides drawing,
watercolor; one of a sailboat
is
Using small pieces of ordinary paper he painted his
Hopper experimented with
signed and dated 1895, a
when he was
range of subjects similar to
drawings: not only sailboats and ships, but also soldiers,
at play, a
still life.
managing
1899, ^^
^^^ attained some command over the medium,
he painted his father's portrait
this time,
paternal figure looks a
little
to paint landscapes.
cove, his
first
in
At
surviving signed and dated
pond
ice
the floor.
Another
at
Nyack on an
oil,
gouache.
painting also survive. Initially
thirteen, he painted a
The
oil
easel
Hopper
rowboat moored
on canvas. In
a later
sketch of his studio space in his boyhood home, he depicts his
of the old
ballet
scared.
A few amateurish attempts at oil wanted
trees, holly, a lion
an aggressive soldier with a drawn gun and two
to paint
Around
dancers.
By
thirteen.
pen-and-ink
own
painting
with his paint box lying beneath
painted while he was
still
in
in a
it
on
high school, attempted a
favorite subject of the early drawings, a sailing scene.
Hopper also experimented with ink as a medium. As early as 1895, he made a drawing of the British transatlantic steamship, the Great Eastern. He must have been motivated to try pen and ink by reading the illustrated magazines. Joseph Pennell, a popular illustrator, claimed that art in itself," only
due
to the
began
to flourish in
America about
appeared
it
He
This was
development of a new photographic engraving process
the reproduction of pen-and-ink drawings. as
pen drawing, "as an
1880.^^
in
magazines
developed such
facility
Hopper emulated
like St. Nicholas, Puc^, Harper's,
with pen and ink that
this
in part
suitable for
the technique
and the Century.
alone might have sug-
gested to his parents that he pursue a career as a commercial illustrator. the
drawing manuals and the popular
Edward absorbed with
late
illustrations in
the current repertoire of attitudes, styles
Victorian values.
From
magazines and books,
and themes, along
A Christmas gift from his father of toy soldiers in-
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8gg
p=Og ^"^^
Edward Hopper, on paper, lo
"T^^^^u
THERES TROUBLE COMIN',
X 8" (2^.4
I
Xio.^ cm.).
iS()8.
(C®m\l\s^
Pen and
ink,
/9
EDWARD HOPPER spired
him
/
to cut out his
and he would draw and he conceived
own, painting them
tion;^'"
in careful detail in watercolor,
soldiers, often in action. Historic
a particular fascination for
tween the States had defined the Garret, born in 1852, had
collective
American
memory
open the boy's
to
eyes.^''
history.
The war
his eye
The War
be-
of his father's generafirst
hand, living
riots in
New York, garnering
lived in
documentary photo-
through the terror and danger of the 1863 draft
memories
uniforms caught
the repercussions at
felt
20
graphs and works of art, from Winslow Homer's illustrations and paintings to
commemorative
sculpture, also in public ceremonies
and
festive reenact-
ments. Already by 1890, the event was "becoming a romantic memory."^^ Civil
War monuments and museums and
would
interest
Hopper
An American fire at
the photographs of Mathew Brady
in later years.
revolutionary soldier standing with his bayonet before the
an encampment appears in At Valley Forge, an especially competent
drawing made by Hopper
in 1895,
aged thirteen, in which he took care
to ren-
der accurately the folds in the soldier's coat and the wrinkles on his leggings. In February 1898,
when he was fifteen. Hopper was swept up in the wave
of collective fervor caused by the sinking of the battleship Maine, which went
down
in
Havana harbor with
illustrations,
the loss of 266
he used pen and ink for his
men. Devouring headlines and
own
versions of the events that led
DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE; FEBHAVANA HARBOR; US.S. Maine; and an image of Uncle Sam captioned THERES [sic] TROUBLE COMIN. Thrillmg to the patriotic to the
Spanish-American War:
RUARY IS,
1898;
rhetoric of President William
Hopper
also portrayed Shelling
Less dramatically,
McKinley and
the brilliant naval displays,
Havana.
Edward absorbed
other contemporary preoccupations
and prejudices. By the 1890s the country was sharply divided over
its
ability
to assimilate the increasing influx
of immigrants, and the debate also
Baptists.^^ Stereotypes flourished,
tending to depict a threat by alien and rad-
ical forces to a status
court, the real
quo represented
America. This
as
split the
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and, tout
nativist ideology underlies
Hopper's sketch of a
grotesquely bearded, long-haired man, captioned Anarchism and resembling the popular stereotype of recent immigrants from Eastern Europe.^'"^ lar
A
simi-
ideology informs several other drawings of this period. In one he portrays
eight male figures,
and occupation
endowed with exaggerated
to suggest ethnic types.
junk, Africans dancing around white
men
and stock scenes of African- American
attributes of anatomy, dress,
Others depict
is
Sunday
cast in
school:
Chinese
tied to a stake near a
man
cooking
in a
pot,
life.
Cultural stereotypes also surface in Edward's
which
a
first
surviving doggerel,
language that echoes hymns from church and lessons from
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8gg
2/
I
Edward Hopper, Anarchism,
7(599.
on paper,
^^^ ^"^
{detail
g'AxyV/'(2^.i
On
A pagan
race
While from
A hoarse cry Of images
the Late Chinese
may downward
on
^''^K
sheet)
X ig.ycm.).
War
trod the path to hell
their multitudinous throats there swell
raised in boistrous praise
of brass and stone
But can the Christian race with
Choke down their The wrath of God
fire
and sword
throats the Gospel of our will surely fall
Lord
on these presumptions puppets
Who bestow their iconsistant efforts on
the heathen horde.
Ibelow are sketches of three heads with Chinese features^
Alluding
to
Chinese resistance
to foreign
domination
in the 1890s,
which
cul-
minated in the Boxer rebellion of 1900, Edward uses religious jargon versified, subversively and awkwardly groping his way through jingoism toward the irony of a
skeptic.^'^'
Irony and satire become a characteristic mode, evident in numerous
drawings.
The new vogue
spired satire: a
woman
Hopper danger comes
of the bicycle quickly caught Hopper's eye and in-
speeds out of control toward the viewer; typically for in
female guise. Satirizing himself, he sketched a cou-
ple courting, with the caption
LANDSCAPE AFTER HOPPER,
alluding to
EDWARD HOPPER
/
Edward Hopper, Eight Male Figures of Different c.
i8gy. Pencil on paper, lo
X 8'' (2^.4
X20.^cm.).
Nationalities
and Occupations,
22
The Roots of Conflict: 1 882- 1 8gg
2^
/
himself ironically with the formula reserved for old masters. Portraying
"A Snapshot," showing an
courtship again, he used the caption
and
early
timely awareness of photography: "snap shot" referred to hand-held photog-
raphy and
man
came
first
into use
around
posing for a photograph
1890.
He made
at the studio
a satirical
drawing of a
of "Prof. Meryon Clark
Hypo
Durkee Esq." Hopper's prankish sense of humor frequently his love for the cartoons
a catcher in a
captioned
is
mask, repeats
"You must laugh." Humorously he combines prejudice in a sketch from 1899: a
and top
And
hat, looks at a
monkey
man
in a
THIS
A COMIC PICTURE
IS
The name
awareness with ethnic
with simian features, dressed in a
The
cage at the zoo.
pends upon Darwin and takes sides
in
Nyack. For
in the conflict
Human
I
don't see any re-
down humorously on
its
punch the joke de-
scientific fervor for
the side of secular
beings with simian features appear also in other
made at the time. Knowledge of Darwin might
who
between religious funda-
mentalism, from Sunday school, and the mounting
Darwin's theories, coming
suit
caption reads: "Pat
Pat invokes the stereotype of the Irish Catholics,
were among the most recent immigrants
edge.
and commands,
this assertion
scientific
they say we're descended from those beasts, faith!
semblance."
The
of the popular British caricaturist Philip May.
scene of a baseball player at bat
and another, of
encouraged by
surf^ices,
knowl-
humorous
sketches he
reinforce negative stereotypes of
Readers of The Descent of Man encounter such statements as
powerful in body and mind than woman, and in a far
mal."^"
"Man
women. is more
savage state he keeps her
in the
more abject state of bondage than does the male of any other aniDarwin also asserted that men have a "greater intellectual vigor and
power of invention" than women.^^ If ideas of male superiority
were
in the air, they
could hardly be taken for
granted in the Hopper menage. Edward's father was not in charge. Frequently he found reason to be at the store or at church, leaving his son alone in a
household
ter, his
in
which he was overwhelmed by females:
grandmother, and the maid.
When
became too threatening, Edward would
bedroom
retreats of his
or the
attic.
his
the presence of
retreat to read or
When
mother, his
all
draw
these
sis-
women
in the solitary
he resorted to his insensitive
pranks, his targets were often female, suggesting equal parts of resentment at
domination and desire
Out of the
to be noticed.
disparity
These were patterns he never outgrew.
between male and female
roles in the
Hopper house-
hold came some remarkable examples of Edward's joking vein. Satirical sketches,
made
at
fending off a stout tance to the
about fourteen, show
woman; then
the thin
first a thin,
man
weak man with
a
beard
submitting with evident reluc-
woman's smothering embrace; and
finally, the
man
in flight,
pur-
EDWARD HOPPER
/
^%^^ .Ji vr— -^
TH
Edward Hopper, Pencil on paper.
H
ESCAPE
ACT ACT II NECK, THE ESCAPE, I,
c.
1896.
M
The Roots of Conflict: i882-i8gg
I
2$
sued by the woman with arms outstretched, over the captions y4CT/, ACT II NECK, THE ESCAPE. The images caricature Hopper's parents and the narrative
conveys his adolescent sense of an imhalanced and threatening
rehi-
tionship between male and female. His mother represents both attraction to
and
fear of the demonstrative
shadows the insecure,
and domineering female, while
retiring
Another cartoon narrative,
Henpeck replies:
A
Misinterpreted
instructing her husband:
"Now
Her husband,
the fire in your hands."
"Oh, no, you'd better leave
it
at
Command,
represents Mrs.
John, I'm going out and
specifically
Hopper's observation
home.
CHRISTMAS POP,
MERRY
with a pen-and-ink drawing of Garret in great surprise
at his gift, a quill pen.
The
paternal figure stands awkwardly, wearing house
shaggy and disheveled on
slippers with his suit, his hair
his balding head,
pathetic.
These caricatures make
clear that
Hopper's male role model lacked the
authority expected by the culture and the
son.
His parents' inversion of psy-
may have caused him to resent willful women. But in the end,
chological roles like his father,
leave
Again the images record
In a similar vein, he produced a card for his father captioned
weak and even
I'll
Henpeck, timidly
identified as Mr.
in the stove."
contemporary stereotypes while suggesting
and experience
his father fore-
male he himself became.
woman like his own introversion.
he was drawn to an outgoing
garrulous personality contrasted with his
mother, whose
§
senior
hopper's
which trumpeted
itselfi
class
produced
a newspaper.
the seniors of 1899 in
The Graduate,
Nyack High School
far ex-
number [seventeen] and in scholarship any graduating class in former years." Nyack was "one of the eight best high schools in the 'Empire State' " and boasted twenty-nine faculty members. In the issue for March
ceeded "in
1899, G.
H. Hopper Dry Goods ran an
committee. In fered.
fact the school's
Hopper had
a
ad.
Edward
served on the advertising
programs were limited. Sports were not
rowing machine and
where he sometimes played with
a
friends.
punching bag
at
home
of-
in the attic
(With one, Ralph Bedell, he also
used to draw.)
Repeatedly in these years Hopper painted and sketched himself. These self-portraits, often in the
much about
form of rather casually executed
his personality, self-image,
sheet together with
caricatures, reveal
and concerns. In one drawing, on
a
two sketches of boxers, he portrays himself with a grim and dressed in boyish knickers, as if he had not grown
expression, bent over up, standing
awkwardly with
body resembles
a pole
large ungainly feet. In another, his thin lanky
supporting
a cylindrical
neck supporting
his head,
with
EDWARD HOPPER large ears protruding in an ungainly
angle. This caricature
his
arm extended
26
at
an
placed in the middle of a sheet crowded with other
is
male images, including
manner and
/
shepherd with
a
man
his staff, a
with a sword, a na-
drawn gun. Only the awkward scrawny figure in the center seems helpless, without a weapon to face the world. Throughout his youth Hopper represented himself with homely, distive
with a spear, a policeman with
a
torted features, indicating his dislike of his thick lips
and large
ears.
He
also
appears as a skinny, ungraceful nude with stooped shoulders, seated on the
edge of
a
tub or pool.
When
he appears riding a bicycle, his figure
is
strug-
work
gling and scrawny. But he repeated this theme, indicating that he could
up speed, and rewarded himself
for the
workout with
symbol of virtuousness that would become
tional
a halo, the
conven-
a staple in his portrayals
of
himself in situations of conflict.
When he graduated from high school m and
ink: clad in cap
1899, he sketched himself in
pen
and gown and holding his diploma, he walks out the door
representing the security of home toward a distant mountain labeled "fame."
A caption reads, OUT INTO THE COLD WORLD. the style of caricature
own complex torial
means
and
to stereotypical
themes
Once again he
emotions. His confidence in his talent induces him to use pic-
to express inner conflict.
of passage, his mind
is
set
The
sketch reveals that in the
on the ambition raised and
justified
ence of art, even while insecurity dictates reference to the ent, discovered
resource.
miliar
resorts to
in seeking to express his
Now
and nurtured it
pointed
and assuring,
yet
in the
home, had already proved
him outward beyond
narrow and
risk.
inhibiting.
the
community
moment
by his experi-
His
artistic tal-
and
a refuge
that
was
His feelings show again
a
so fain an-
other sketch on the same sheet, in a frontal self-portrait with an anxious,
wrinkled brow under the mortarboard of the graduate.
Hopper longed
to be
an
fears for his future security.
artist,
His
but he had to contend with his parents'
father's
own
failure in business did not instill
confidence. His mother, although cultivated and aware of his talent, was anxious
and over-protective. She knew how much
their tenor of life
depended on
her resources and feared the father's fecklessness in the son. Both parents implored
Edward
to
go
to school for illustration.
Mindful of economic
getful of the confident enterprise of Elizabeth's
own
risk, for-
grandfather
in
his
adopted land, they counseled the route made familiar by myriad books and journals. Virtues vailed.
stamped with prudence and predicated on mediocrity pre-
Edward was
inability
and the history of from the
prey to the same considerations, haunted by his father's
and dependence,
start.
failure
in
no position
to be certain
of his powers. Doubt
wrote frustration and depression into the
script
D[FiNIKi;
THE T/lLEi: 1(109-1906
THE FALL OF 1899, Hopper
IN
York School of
American zines.
art,
Illustrating.
began formal training
school has
at the
New
scant trace in the annals of
left
apart from advertisements on crumbling pages of old
maga-
Hopper's receipts for the monthly ten-dollar fee took their place with
the childhood sketches the bills plies
The
and keepsakes treasured
in the attic.
His parents paid
and conditioned the choice. Rearing him, they had provided
and
illustrated
magazines
very cultural opening vision of
where
to stimulate
came back
and shape
his imagination.
That
narrowing
their
to delimit their horizon,
talent like their son's
might
lead.
Clues to what the Hoppers wanted to obtain by sending school for illustration can be gathered from
The hopes dangled and
art sup-
Edward
to a
the surviving advertisements.
the expertise professed belong to the eternal
come-
ons of commercial colleges, even while they document the lively image market in late Victorian America. Just
when Edward was graduating from high
and Pencil tie
for
school, the issue o^ Brush
June 1899 carried an advertisement featuring a youth
in
bow
with pad and pens:
/
27
EDWARD HOPPER
28
/
CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL OF ILLUSTRATING
LEARN TO DRAW BY MAIL Home instruction in drawing for newspapers and magazines by sucAdapted
cessful illustrators. Requires spare time only.
old,
men and women,
tunity to enter a highly profitable profession. struction given elsewhere.
well-known
to
beginners and advanced students.
No
young and
An
oppor-
such practical in-
By our methods students have become
illustrators.
Full information free }
During
the
summer, the school had changed
classes in-house.^ It advertised again in
new name and
with a
drawing
struction in
all
September
in the International Studio
SCHOOL OF ILLUSTRATING
for newspapers, magazines, books. Practical in-
modern methods.
Instructors:
CHAS. HOPE PROVOST (known
as a contribu-
tor to Life, Truth, Scribner's, N.Y. Herald, St. Nicholas, etc.);
LIPMAN
DE
M.
(former Art Editor N.Y. Journal, and contributor to N.Y.
Herald); R. L.
CURRAN (photography contributor to Cosmopolitan,
Truth, Illustrated American, etc.);
W.
to offer
different spiel:
N.Y. teaches
and expanded
location
L. Metcalf,
MISS JANIE
Douglas Volk, and Francis C.
Classes day
and evening.
No
ZIMMER
(pupil of
Jones).
such practical teaching elsewhere.
Call or write for full information.
N.Y. 1
14
SCHOOL OF ILLUSTRATING
West 34th
Street,
New York^
Hopper's receipts bear the school's old name and rolled by the
month
for lessons
The
Hoboken and
to
family took the school at face value.
the world they
address.
He
"Every Day," returning each evening
house on North Broadway, taking the ferry Nyack."*
new
It
sounded
en-
to the
the train to
like a
way
into
knew from print. Nothing in Nyack prepared them to consider
that this faculty
was not
in fact big-time.
1899 issue states that the "School
is
An ad
[the]
in Scribner's
outgrowth of
Magazine October illustrating classes
formed seven years ago by Mr. Chas. Hope Provost."^ Further outgrowth
came
in the
Bool{s,
Magazines,
the
form of books, etc.
(1903)
A
Treatise
on
which accompany
to Illustrate
and Simplified Illustrating
methods Provost used and Hopper met
to those
How
this text
(1911),^'
for Newspapers,
which describes
in school: "Practise sheets similar
book were devised by
me
in 1893,
and
first
Defining the Talent:
used
in
part of
1
8gg-i()o6
29
/
my classes then located at 9 West 14th Street, New York City. ... A my program for each student's work is liberal practise-sheet training."''
Provost advised the would-be illustrator to copy carefully a
number of charts, many mag-
and himself boasted he had "drawn thousands of illustrations" for azines, including Harper's Monthly,
Harper's Weef{ly,
Vogue, Ainslee's,
and
Ladies World.
The
1903 book addressed the "Commercial Side of Illustration," returning
theme of its author: "Commercial
to a favorite
treated as a business."'^ Profit
was
art
is
when worth repeating. "A
extremely profitable
a proven selling point,
highly profitable profession" was what Provost advertised in June of 1899. Yet the profit motive does not grip everyone, as even Provost
many
students of an extremely artistic temperament
forced to admit:
is
all
"To
commercial work
is
They should try the publishers." That would not satisfy the likes of Edward Hopper. Whatever practice sheets and charts might give him technically, the school's most valuable lesson was a more precise understanding of the nature and implication of his gift. Illustration school taught him that commercial work was as alien to his natural bent as business was to his father's. With distasteful.
growing self-knowledge came resentment remove. In the 1930s
and
and surfaced
at a great
from home
Saint-Gaudens, director of the Department of Fine Arts at the
Carnegie
Institute.
According to Saint-Gaudens: "So continuously did he draw,
that after graduation
The
later
from high school
memory
what engaged Hopper the most
paragon of
his parents sent
him
to a
commercial
art
New York City. That gave scant satisfaction."'"
establishment in
when
that lingered
the story of his departure
disappointment with rare openness to a supporter of his work,
initial
Homer
Hopper confided
of discontent must be weighed against the signs of at the time. It
famous
illustrators
was the "Golden Age" of
illustration,
commanded impressive fees. The fancy: he made a pen-and-ink sketch of
practitioners
caught
his
Dana Gibson, palette in hand, elegantly attired.' Themes suitable for publishers predominate in his earliest work. He had copied an illustration by Dore for Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Charles
Mariner";
now
he sketched other literary characters in pen and ink: from
Dickens, the simple-minded youth in Barnaby Rudge, Fagin and Oliver in Oliver Twist,
Carton
in
A
Tulkinghorn the inscrutable lawyer Tale of Two Cities;
Brigadier Gerard; from Hawthorne's The
Prynne.
He penciled an
Sighs," about a vorites Kipling
illustration for
young woman's and
Hugo as
in Blea/{
House, and Sydney
from Conan Doyle, the hero o^The
Exploits of
Scarlet Letter, the adulterous Hester
Thomas Hood's poem "The Bridge of
suicide.
He
also sketched
well as from Ibsen
from
his old fa-
and Cervantes.
Less likely to represent assignments, other sketches
show
with the caption "Studies for Devil in 'Miser,'" although Satan
devils' is
heads
not a char-
EDWARD HOPPER acter in the Moliere
drama. Hopper expands on the devil theme with
boldly colored panel in reflectively all in
so
/
red, with a cape
sword barely
signed and dated 1900: a meditative figure, chin
oil,
on one hand,
is
a small,
dressed in accordance with old
of stiff silk
and
visible in the other
German
tradition,
a cock's feather in his cap, a long pointed
hand. Surrounded by a hint of flames,
Mephistopheles image suggests nothing so
much
as a
drawing
this
for the theater,
perhaps for Goethe's Faust, which came to be seen as emblematic of German
Romantic consciousness. Hopper "representative
men")
as a writer
later refers to
whose
Even while honing techniques ordinary settings at home. a rocking chair, the house
and buildings
rocks,
Hopper continued to sketch graphite or ink, he drew a woman in
in the city,
Working
in
on North Broadway, Smith's dock,
saw
stone, a cat boat that he
Goethe (one of Emerson's
ideas shaped his aesthetics.
a colonial
in the landscape,
and sketches of his family and
that
was gaining currency with some
illustrators
friends.
him
In the spring of 1900 he also experimented with ink wash, for
medium, one
tomb-
neighboring Piermont, more studies of boats,
in
a
new
and might be
expected in an up-to-date school. Ink wash, like painting, could be repro-
duced by the new process of printing from
some an had no
Fleet.
drawing, he used wash
to depict a
and seemed
to
Although Hopper
easier alternative to the exacting discipline of line.
fear of line
satchel, a figure
White
a half-tone screen
music box,
a revolver, a
of a boy, and a United States naval vessel, the Ship of the Great
The
latter
he rendered in loving
detail, characteristic
of the boy
who grew up around boats and remembered the Maine in youthful drawings. He continued to take pride in the new fleet, which was modernized under the expansionist presidency of McKinley and painted white in a boast of power to the world.
With the views
penchant for caricature. Hopper should have heard willingly
his
on "humor
Broadly speaking, tle
of the school's head, Provost,
in art"
all
humorous
lengthening of line, a
little
perceptible twist to a curve
But
called a caricature.
must be guided by the
hand
it is.
that
The
draws
A
lit-
and similar devices make what
these intentional deviations
a caricature
must
first
artists
learn to
is
from nature
humor; and
draw an
object as
of ability will help to give an
approved methods of caricaturing.'"
brilliant
the Christmas
exaggeration of nature.
a brain that has a true conception of
or without such advice.
to copy.
is
later wrote:
shortening of that one, an almost im-
these
Copying the works of comic
insight into
With
—
—
art
who
Hopper found an
English illustrator Phil
able comic artist
May drew
number of the Century magazine
East
for 1899.'^
and began
End Loafers
Soon
after,
for
one of
Defining the Talent:
1
8gg- 1 go6
May's three down-and-out male figures before
who also made two
i
/
a
shop front was copied by
Hopper,
acquired Phil May's
wise he
pen-and-ink sketches entitled Phil May's
S/{etc'hl?oo/{
with
hke-
fifty cartoons;'"^
Singer, depicting
a scruffy street musician.
When Hopper
returned
home
for the
summer he selected and
The Cree^at Hogencamps, Old Church on
sheet" training:
delineated
of "liberal practise-
local sights in precise sketches that suggest the effect
New City Road,
De-
He
also
ventured a naturalistic watercolor of the most famous and grandiose
local
House on Mountain, and Camp
serted
Nyacl{,
Greenwood
Lal^e.
landmark, Hool{ Mountain, Nyacl{. Looming above the Tappan Zee, the
promontory had inspired an ambitious 1866.
Other grand
vistas
oil
by Sanford Robinson Gifford
during the second half of the century by Albert Bierstadt,
worked
from Nyack
just across the river
reproduced
in the illustrated press, the
the visual culture that permeated the
been
in
Edward's mind
in
nearby were painted with similarly romantic vision
as
in
who
lived
and
Irvington-on-Hudson. Widely
Hudson
River painters formed part of
Hopper home. Their
vision
must have
he viewed their scenes. Gifford's calm view of the
double peak above the water emphasized light and atmosphere, looking south from Haverstraw Bay.
Hopper looked north from Nyack, centering his
composition not on the double peaks but on a bare rock
face: against the light
rock a dark smokestack stands out, above a mill with dark windows. Below,
and hints of works and docks invade the green slopes and encroach
trestles
on the
river. Typically,
he undercuts the romantic.
to draw at Greenwood Lake, Hopper invited comparison with Hudson River painter. Jasper Cropsey, whose home overlooked the Tappan Zee, had painted the lake in the 1860s. When Hopper camped there with friends, he recorded the experience in drawings: two show the tent and
Choosing
another
campsite in meticulous littering the
end of the
third sketch (at the site,
but the
detail,
with a bicycle wheel suspended
letter
way home. Beneath
picts his father sitting
spying on his son.
Greenwood Lake,
ON THE WATCH,
on the roof of the house squinting through
The
Hopper dea telescope,
boys stayed out for a week or more: his mother pre-
N.Y., July 24, 1900."
"Edward Hopper, Camp Nyack,
Two
days later he wrote his earliest
letter:
Dear Mama, In the
first
place
it's
raining "to beat the band," which prevents
us from going outside very much and that said
I
should not.
1
A
he wrote home) shows not only the camp-
the caption
served a fungus on which he inscribed:
surviving
in the tent, cans
foreground, milk crate benches, and laundry hung out to dry.
am
feeling well
is
why
and having
a
I
am
writing for
I
good time and have
EDWARD HOPPER
^*^B(%i»iyf
,'^^^
/
"^"f^S^-^
J-^H^>-.,.-;„
..
,^
Edward Hopper, Camp Nyack, Greenwood Lake,
(3^aij CTJ^Qa.GnEENVVOOD LAKE
igoo.
i^
^
Pen and ml{ on paper,
g'AXi^V/(24.i X^4.gcm.).
worn my underclothes washday for us.
plenty of clothes and underwear, having the lake yesterday
On
which was
a regular
Tuesday, while some of us were out in the woods,
beautiful fungus as white as
I
in
found a
snow and have scratched my name on
it.
We have been fishing but have had poor luck. We have only had one mess offish since we came and they were rather small. '^
At eighteen. Hopper ports.
He had
still felt
resisted.
under surveillance. His mother had wanted
Rain persuades where she could
re-
not: characteristic but
He knows the topics mothers want, health and hygiene, unTo judge from the sketch, the garment washed in the swim was
hardly gracious.
derwear. striped.
Among Wallace
who camped that summer at Greenwood Lake was Tremper, who in his own way was to deal with the transformations the friends
of the early twentieth century more deftly than Hopper, going from black-
smith to plumber and
finally to gas station operator in
Nyack.
'^'
Hopper
por-
trayed Wallace and himself boxing in a format inspired very directly by Phil
May,
who had lampooned himself boxing in his Record of the Famous Fight May and Fatty Coleman, setting his own scrawny, awkward fig-
between Phil
ure against Coleman's rotund brawn.''
Hopper made
a like sketch
of himself
taking a beating from the more muscular Tremper. Hopper's body
is
long
Defiriing the Talent: i8gg-ig()6
and skinny,
his posture
/
awkward and graceless,
his face
^j
deHcate but distorted
with a fearful grimace. Tremper's belly bulges out over his boxer shorts, while
Hopper's striped shorts are ornamented with feminate qualities.
arm
A
variant shows the virile
scoring a knockout as
Hopper
falls to
a
Howerlike
bow
Tremper with
the Hoor.
expresses a deep truth about Hopper's emotional
life
Again
a
suggesting ef-
his strong right
comic narrative
and, here, his insecurity
about himself
The
year in the city had sharpened Edward's awareness of his natural
bent and of the art scene. In the
him
transfer to a
a full
fall
of 1900 he persuaded his parents to
much more famous and
range of instruction not only in commercial but also
agreed to pay fifteen dollars for his part,
would be would be
a
let
distinguished school, which offered
month, half again
as
much
in fine art.
as before.
They
Edward,
to study illustration. But now the next step The examples with which he was beginning to identify hand. The New York School of Art was on the second floor
would continue
shorter.
close at
of a ramshackle brick building at 57 West Fifty-seventh Street, at the northeast corner of Sixth
Avenue. Founded
William Merritt Chase,
in 1900
it
as the
Chase School by the painter
was owned and run by Douglas John Con-
Edward Hopper, Edward Hopper Boxing with Wallace Tremper, Pen and
inl{
on paper.
igoo.
EDWARD HOPPER
/
who worked
nah, a painter
sion required no
would be
tests,
in a style strongly influenced
an exceptional
laxity.
eligible for the painting class.
Anyone
34
by Chase. Admis-
drawing
familiar with
Beginning students worked immedi-
ately
from
color
were taught together. The whole thrust was antiacademic. By compar-
ison with
rather than
life
more
the instructors
on the
classic
works
staid academies, the place
were not on
races while seated selves
from
lintels.'"
was
in plaster casts.
boisterous, even chaotic.
in the studio, the students
chairs,
Drawing and
When
boxed with the models; ran
hopping about the room; and chinned them-
New students could enroll at any time of year as long as
space was available in the dilapidated studios. Unsuspecting entrants were
greeted by whistling, singing, smoking, and teasing classmates.
A former stu-
dent recalled:
One
of the peculiarities of the Chase School
have of wiping palate scrapings
and sometimes on the to the highest a It is in
man
chairs.
at the
is
a
Bohemian way they
end of the day on the
walls,
The paint is two inches thick from floor
can reach, most of it dry, but you can never
great close velvety gobs, laid on by the knife
full
tell.
and indeed
a
curious sight to a stranger and every Chase student has an accidental
patch of red paint on the brow of his pants.
Vivacity and pranks
went hand
in
hand with
''^
serious work.
The
school held
regular public concours and student exhibitions. Every year there were ten free tuition scholarships, five each for
best studies in the several classes
A more du
were
men and women. Cash also
handed out monthly.
remarkable number of Hopper's classmates went on
or less vivid in the story of twentieth-century
Bois,
Homer chorn,
prizes for the
make names American art: Guy Pene to
George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Glenn O. Coleman, Gifford
Boss,
Beal,
Arnold Friedman, Walter Pach, C. K. Chatterton, Carl Sprin-
Edmund
William Graecen, Randall Davey, Walter
Henry Bruce, Clarence Coles younger student,
Webb
P.
Phillips,
Tittle, Patrick
and Eugene Speicher.
A much
Hollenbeck, then called Robin, or sometimes
"Robin Red Nose," became the actor Clifton Webb.'" Another, Vachel Lindsay,
took the advice of the popular teacher Robert Henri and gave up paint-
ing for poetry, although he continued to illustrate his Illustration
was taught by Arthur Ignatius
sketches emphasized character, unlike Hopper's Keller,
New
renowned
York
Akademie.
at the
He
own
Keller,
poems.''
whose
work
before this time.
for the brilliant facility of his technique,
National
Academy of Design and
in
realistic figure
had trained
Munich
in
at the Alte
created an impression of spontaneity through the judicious
use of passages of light and tonal subtlety. Also, Keller had published an
il-
Defining the
Talefit:
i8gg- 1 go6
lustration in the issue oi Century
magazine from which Hopper copied
work of this period makes
May."" Hopper's
^5
/
Phil
clear that Keller's students fo-
it
cused on the figure, sketching costumed models as an aid to their imagination
and
improve
to
seriously,
He
their
drawing. Hopper had already hegun
concentrating on
also investigated the
just
one part of the body, such as a hand or
"tall,
from along the Hudson,
also
ton recalled that ting next to
him
Hopper looked up
make
confidence and awareness to intensity of his
Chatterton,
him
who was
per's timidity
him
a classmate in
and good
a "tall
Newburgh,
looking"^"*
an older brother, always
like
il-
New York. Chatter-
Hopper developed
further
the
sit-
still
training as an illustrator.
into the class
and brushes: and
"It's
reserve,
it
self-
the leap from illustration to painting.
newly acquired resolve emerges from an anecdote
Hopper came
a palette
to
at
was
as Chat,
in class.
Another year passed before
1 90 1,
known
two years older than Edward and
young man,
a.foot.
fellow student recorded his
big-boned and solemn, but with nice flashes of
dry humor.""^ Clarence K. Chatterton, lustration,
A
drawings of Vesalius.
impression of Hopper as
anatomy
to study
One day
The
told by
of
late in the fall
where Chatterton was drawing and handed
time you started to paint. ""^ For one of Hop-
was an enormous
self-revelation
and commit-
He could do no less than share his own new sense of higher purpose man who had come to fill the place in his affections of the brother he
ment.
with the
never had. Hopper's determination so impressed Chatterton that he accepted the challenge.
He became
a painter
and
a lifelong friend.
In that period at the school, fine arts students chose ers, all
from
a
range of teach-
of whom deferred to Chase as the founder and leading teacher. Other
faculty
members included
whom,
like
}.
Carroll Beckwith and
F.
Luis Mora, both of
Chase, taught drawing and painting, and Frank Vincent du
Mond, who taught painting and composition. Beckwith's name
is
inscribed
on one of Hopper's early drawings of a female nude, perhaps because he sisted
Chase and may have taught one of Hopper's
as-
classes in Chase's absence.
Hopper's favorite teacher was Kenneth Hayes Miller, with
whom
he studied
drawing.
Chase was Hopper's at the
Royal
Academy
in
first
teacher in painting. Born in Indiana, but trained
Munich, Chase commanded admiration
as "the lead-
ing spirit and chief instructor" at the school, to which he brought his Euro-
pean
urbanity."^' In
three
hundred students, about
sisted that
February 190 1, Chase, then fifty-two, claimed sixty percent
of
whom
were women.
have
He
in-
he warned his students: "Shake off the influence of the school as
quickly as you can. (cultivate individuality. Strive to express your
ronment according
"Many
to
to
your
own
your
lights, in
students stay too long in art school
.
.
.
own
way."^^
The average
He
own
envi-
explained:
period of study
is
EDWARD HOPPER
about three years. as a life career,
and
.
.
.
Not more than one-tenth of the
this,
art school only to gain
perhaps,
is
just as well."'"
six years,
recalled.^'^
work
model
in front
and once
Hopper, heartened
dressed
—white carnation
in his
run through a ring, spats," Chatter-
Every Monday, Chase gave
in a large studio,
facility.
twice what Chase prescribed.
The great man "was always impeccably lapel buttonhole, pearl-grey vest, his tie
dents'
art students follow art
He felt that a student needed
technique and mechanical
by prizes and scholarships, stayed
ton
i6
/
a
a public evaluation
month, he painted
of all the stu-
a study
from the
of his students as a "practical demonstration of his method."^"
Chatterton called Chase's criticisms "theatrical triumphs" and noted:
"He
punctuated his remarks by running his fingers through his large moustache while he gazed intently
through ribbon.
glasses, or a
at the
student whose
work he was considering
monocle which hung around
neck on
his
a
wide black
He was a great showman, and he had a great following. The women,
particularly,
hung on
his every word."^'
Chase accompanied
his students
on
Museum of Art, where he hoped that Lindsay told how Chase implored students
occasional visits to the Metropolitan
they would be inspired. Vachel to
go
to the galleries at least
once a month. ^^ They also went to exhibitions
held nearby at the Lenox Library, which in the
fall
of 1903 was showing
Japanese prints and Whistler etchings. ^^ These excursions are documented
men
by Hopper's sketches of three
in a
museum
gallery carefully studying
the paintings.
Most of the figures he sketched
Sculpture, too, caught Hopper's attention.
were eye
permanent
in the cast gallery, then a
fell
on the Heracles from the
hys'ippos's
east
installation at the Metropolitan.
His
pediment of the Parthenon, the LMocoon,
Apoxyomenos, Boethus's 5o)/ Strangling a Goose, the Venus de Milo,
and
the Apollo Belvedere, Michelangelo's David
his Moses,
and Rodin's La
necker's Ariadne, Thorvaldsen's Venus,
Vieille
Johann Dan-
Femme. He
also
sketched from reproductions in art books that he bought, particularly Masters
ofArt, the inexpensive magazinelike
then popular.
series
Hopper even copied
part of the letterhead of this series on one of his drawings.
Chase defended the need
to assimilate the
solute originality in art can only be
dark room from babyhood. frankly and openly take in
judgment couraged art,
will
all
.
.
found
we
we
can.
that
his students to
like in
at a
them.
master whose work most pleases you,
and
try to
do
it
has been locked in a
are dependent on others, .
.
.
The man who does will
have value. "^"^
let
us
that with
And
he en-
synthesize and adapt motifs from famous works of
few pictures
what you most
made by others: "Ab-
man who
in a
Since
produce an original picture that
advising: "Study a
find out
.
advances
yourself."^^
time and try to understand them and I
in
should not mind you imitating the order to find out what you like in
it
Defining the Talent: i8gg-igo6 In line with Chase's teaching, after other artists,
reveahng
minded
He
curiosity.
tempting
to
Hopper produced
wide range of
a
i7
I
interests
a
number of
and
sketches
open-
a student's
sketched details more often than the entire work,
at-
understand better whatever features interested him most. His
sources were old masters, such as Hals, Rubens, and Velazquez; he also found the nineteenth-century artists appealing. His taste included both academics
Edwin Landseer, Henri Alexandre Georges Regnault, Mariano Fortuny y Carbo, and Frederick Lord Leighton, and more vanguard artists such as Edouard Manet. Hopper even used oil to copy Manet's Woman with a such as Sir
Parrot, instead
The
Fifer
of the usual pen or pencil sketches, which he
He
and Olympia.
much reproduced
Hoe, which was
With
at the time.
Hopper combined elements of Ingres's Comtesse Bar at the Foltes-Bergeres into acter
from
a
popular
Chase painted
sweeping brush strokes with ity.
He
taught separate
too,
a
with a
his characteristic wit,
McFlimsey,
a single sketch of Miss Flora
period.
a char-
That Chase
influ-
evident in Hopper's earliest student
is
an elegant
in
Man
d'Haussonville with Manet's
poem of the pre—Civil War
enced Hopper by example, paintings.
made of Manet's
also sketched Jean-Francois Millet's
realist style,
characterized by broad
loaded paintbrush, achieving surface virtuos-
life classes
men and women, where
for
students
drew
and painted from nude models, although male models wore loincloths when posing for
women. Chase
held portrait and
worked from costume models or a fish so rapidly that
ner
when he was
it
set-ups.
could go back,
still
still-life classes
where students
He liked to show that he could limn fresh, to the
done. Students labored over
less
market around the cor-
perishable objects such as
copper pots and ceramic jugs, contrasting the textures and degrees of surface reflection. In 1903,
minded students
Hopper painted
that "it
is
a series of
An
for Chase,
who
re-
not the subject, but what the painter makes of his
subject that constitutes great painting. untitled oil portrait of a
Chase's daughter Dorothy,
still lifes
"^^'
young
girl
from
this
period must represent
whom her father portrayed in a similar pose about
1902. Either she posed in class, or
Hopper copied Chase's work. Hopper
also
painted a fellow student before her easel in what must be an observation from Chase's class in portrait and
young blonde
women
is
still life.
this
in interiors.
Hopper produced many draw1901, he frequently drew clothed and costumed models: American a chef, and figures wearing various historical garb. He drew the
While studying with Chase and ings. In
Indians,
nude models
Jimmy
Observed unaware from behind,
painted with elegance worthy of one of Chase's depictions of
in life classes
Miller,
over and over again.
One
favorite
male model,
Corsi, boasted of his heroic poses for John Singer Sargent at the
Boston Public Library.^^ Hopper drew him both nude and costumed as a
fish-
EDWARD HOPPER
erman per's
i«
/
or a historical figure, also portraying
work on anatomical
and
details
him
figures in
somber
in rather
movement
oils.
Hop-
reflects his consci-
entious attention to specific classroom exercises.
was
It
Hopper made seeing monotype
in 1902 at the school that
—
his first prints
—
his only
probably after portraits by Chase, who may have had his students try the medium in class. Chase felt strongly about the communion of the brain and the hand and stressed the spontaneity nec-
monotypes ever
essary for this technique.
Monotype,
or wiped in a slow-drying
oil
and printed before
is
erate
it
dries,
way of working. His
in
which the image
is
painted, rubbed,
paint or ink directly on a metal or glass plate
not really compatible with Hopper's very delib-
five
surviving monotypes,
portraits
all
on small
scraps of paper or discarded envelopes, appear to have been experiments
quickly forgotten. Fashion in the art world shifted and Chase's
work came
to
be viewed as regressive by the time Hopper matured. Hence he often omitted mentioning that he
had ever studied with Chase. In
lanky, diffident, laconic,
swaggering master, whose
"Men
didn't get
Hopper's life in
shift to
said to be as dazzling as his
Chase. There were mostly
painting had
marked
New
make fun of someone more
year younger than Hopper,
a decisive break with his past,
and
Only two
as well.
York School, he found himself in
a posi-
provincial than himself. Walter Tittle, a
came from
farther
away and from an even more
controlling background. Tittle's father in Springfield, Ohio,
quire what never crossed the
demeanor:
women in the class. "^^
encouraged other developments
years after his transfer to the tion to
was
talk
much from
that free society
a rare reference, the
and misogynistic pupil dryly undercut the short
mind of
the
presumed
meek Garret Hopper.
to re-
Tittle
was
constrained to apply to Douglas Connah, as head of the school, for a special dispensation to take the sketches of
life class
nude women,
only
when
like those that
a
went
boyish sketches and the receipts stored up in this
his first entry in a diary: for
on October
at school today,
There was
a
When
a
No
among
the
Nyack, were wanted back
28, 1902,
in
Walter recorded:
got up a verse about
young fellow named
Who worked
posing.^'^
contretemps gained him what was perhaps
Ohio. Edward's reaction to
Hopper,
male model was
to take their place
me
this afternoon.
Tittle
in the life-class a little
female they hired,
he quickly retired Back, back to the woods, Mr.
In his younger schoolmate
Titde."*^
Hopper recognized and
ridiculed values that he
himself was in the process of rejecting, not without the inevitable
conflict.
Defining the Talent:
Among all
Adjusting to ting
right with
it
provided his
first
Baptist circles in
about
among
prompted
Limericks are to poetry as caricature
resorts to a reductive life classes
^9
I
the riotous students, Hopper's intensity
Tittle recorded.
Hopper
Sgg- 1 ()ob
I
form when touched
may have been
is
words
the
that
Here again
to art.
deep nerve.
in a
unsettling for Hopper. Just get-
male anatomy was challenging enough, but female models view of a
woman
without clothes. Flesh was not exposed
Nyack. Something of what the young men
may
themselves
in
and talked
felt
Guy Pene du Bois, Hopper's who described his own shock at
be gathered from
schoolmate, confidant, and lifelong friend,
sketching a female nude: "His face was hot, and he knew, with a feeling
first
of desperation, that
was redder than
it
it
had ever been before
could have stood this better, he thought, with fewer
without any others he could not have stayed a flurry,
du
Bois blurted to his mother: "I
men
On
at all."
know how you
in his life.
in the
He
room, but
home in when you are
returning look
undressed."^'
In the
fall
of 1902, as Hopper started his third year
new
about to encounter a
who would
teacher
give
new
at the school,
definition to his ideas
about art and, incidentally, prolong his stay in school. In
Mond moved He was replaced
Vincent du League.
by Robert Henri, then thirty-seven,
worked
in
Europe.
lar
Tall,
Academy of the Fine
Warm
them
personally, he advised
own
to study the life
ideas. Stressing that art
gods as
displaced art by
life,
discarded
wrote du
cart:
underscored Henri's challenge to the reigning philosophy and
master with metaphors of revolution."*" Henri's tion life's
among the young. Chase sake. The difference was
ered his is
first
criticism in class
.
.
.
preached
as
heard
an instructor. all
over the
From
He
class
on November
talks in a forceful
was "the
seat of the sedi-
art for art's sake;
monumental.'"*^
simply burning with art enthusiasm and
had
philosophy of
easily as brittle porcelain,"
"Completely overturned the apple
who
a
the craft of painting or drawing.
technic, broke the prevailing Bois,
under
broad-shouldered, casually dressed, Henri taught
to express forthrightly their
more than
Arts,
Eakins, and had also studied and
should communicate character and emotions, he emphasized aesthetics
who had
and composition, and made himself exceedingly popu-
with his students.
around them and
Thomas
a disciple of
life classes, portraits,
November Frank
across Fifty-seventh Street to the Art Students
trained in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania
Thomas Anshutz,
he was
7,
is
When
the
Henri, art for
newcomer
deliv-
Walter Tittle exclaimed: "He
the most original
man
I've yet
and animated manner, and can be
room."'*''
the start, Henri taught his "Special Composition Class," devoted
"to a critical study of the principles of pictorial
with a view
and decorative composition,
to their practical application in painting, illustrating,
and de-
EDWARD HOPPER signing."
The
trait class, all
course also covered "the theory and history of art."
In his por-
Henri, according to Vachel Lindsay, "paints the face of a portrait
through
in half
an hour
—but does
it
over and over ten or thirty times
he has mastered every passing expression of the
moment
the last
40
/
sitter's
countenance
till
— then
at
he dashes in the expression that he thinks the profoundest
expression of the
sitter's personality."^''
Henri demanded
"force, likeness,
and
the portraits the students produced.'*'
life" in
Henri shared much with Chase.
In spite of the perceived revolution,
Both admired Manet. Henri encouraged
Woman
students to study Manet's
his
with a Parrot and Boy with a Sword at the Metropolitan
Museum,
where he, like Chase, often took groups of students. He also stressed that Manet had admired Velazquez, Goya, and Hals. Hopper recalled: "At the Chase school we had painted like Manet. Henri was a great admirer of Manet and Manet had been influenced by the Spaniards, Henri resembled Chase,
too, in using
flat,
somber
low
tones, dark.'"^^
colors with painterly
brushstrokes reminiscent of Manet's work, which he praised: "Manet's stroke
was ample, Chase
full,
and flowed with
a gracious continuity,
His 'Olympia' has a supreme elegance.
clever.
in
"^'''
encouraging spontaneity of paint application.
as the class monitor, recalled that
Henri "forbade
brushes."^" This prohibition ultimately helped
was never
Henri
Du
Bois,
who
his students the use
Hopper
to
flip
or
also agreed with
develop a
served
of small style
of
painting in which he grouped large masses of forms, emphasizing figure-
ground
relationships.
Henri's presence soon affected the direction of Hopper's student work. Al-
though Hopper did not make radical changes returned to the
still lifes
models and friends such easels.
He
Chase
as
du
stressed.
He
in subject matter,
continued to
he never again
make
portraits of
Bois, often depicting his fellow students at their
also continued to paint oils that portray
nude models shown seated
or standing on the classroom platform. Henri instructed his students that the
purpose of studying from the model was "mainly to get experience," explain-
and in making your when working from the model. "^' Even after Henri's arrival. Hopper continued to paint with the somber palette he had developed under Chase, including when he chose subjects outing,
"Your composition
is
the expression of your interests
composition you apply what you learn
side of the classroom, such as his
rows
its
Hopper in a
composition, but not
men
in
an orchestra
palette,
lit
pit
(which clearly bor-
from the work of Edgar Degas).
also painted several pictures of his
dimly
boats.
its
bedroom
in
Nyack,
a lone figure
theater interior, as well as colorless views of a ferry slip
Henri had taught
his students to
modeling," explaining that
it
and
sail-
experiment with "black and white
"was largely practiced by the old masters who
relieved themselves of a double difficulty by building
up
their pictures in
Defining the Talent:
monochrome and
1
8gg- 1 go6
wholly dependent on the
monochrome
dent pranks as long as he was not present. In his men's evolved that upon the arrival of a student
new
goaded into treating the entire
and cheese
an elaborate characle variously
comiums on
in
class to a beer
life class,
to the school,
party.
which one older student pretended
commenting on
the students'
work only to lavish elaborate enThe pretender would then
At this juncture,
to strike \}[\^faux
who
it.
Opening
that of Chase.
He would
large, dirty studio walls
with their
smeared and spattered
from
bold
X over work he disapproved,
on pictures
and
paint, student sketches,
Henri pointed out both good and bad
a discussion,
ing individual expression over technical proficiency. a
role
Henri, seconded by the others, with the exception of Rock-
group of drawings against the
layers of
into a frac-
fly
was Hopper's
it
took the teacher's part.
In class, Henri's style of criticism differed a
also
Henri him-
the neophyte's tentative drawing. ^^
who was Hopper, and
up
custom
There was
tious rage, even attempting to destroy
well Kent,
a
he would be
to be
look at the drawing of the best student,
line
Henri's
Life in
substructure."^"
however, was anything but somber. Henri did not seem to mind stu-
classes,
self,
Form was almost
applying glazes of transparent color.
later
4
I
as a sign of approval;
it
Where Chase
was Henri's custom
many of Hopper's
caricatures.
features, prais-
scrawled
to paint a red dot
student paintings earned
the mark.
Hopper's long hours of reading and intellectual curiosity made him,
more than many of his its
revolutionary difference from Chase and academic
rationally
on
a
and
fellows, a ready audience for Henri's philosophy art.
Henri spoke inspi-
wide range of topics, including contemporary
theater.
He
fre-
quendy quoted from French authors such as Zola, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Guy de Maupassant, not that he wanted pean aesthetic on their
work.^"^
his students to
impose
Like Walt Whitman and Emerson,
a
Euro-
he found
value in American subject matter; he wanted his students to develop personal, native
Among his diverse enthusiasms were Whitman, whom he praised as a model for the artist:
means of
Emerson, Tolstoy, and
expression.
"Walt Whitman was such His work
is
thought, his
as
I
an autobiography life
have proposed the
real art
student should be.
—not of haps and mishaps, but of
his deepest
indeed.""
The excitement Henri evoked
in the writings
of others could hardly be
expected of Hopper: too far from character. His recollections provide
esti-
mates that are balanced and nuanced: "Henri wasn't a very good painter, don't think
least
I
Irish
woman
in the
so.
He was
with red
a better teacher than painter.
hair. Beautiful
and tough. "^^ Hopper picked up
way of style from Henri, but he began
of painting under his teacher's influence.
He
to
develop his
at
His wife was an
own
little
philosophy
defined Henri's central princi-
EDWARD HOPPER
Edward Hopper in Robert c.
igo^-igo^ (seated
pie as:
"Art
is life,
terpretation of life.
Henri's Life
Drawing
Class at the
New
Yor^ School of Art,
in foreground at right).
an expression of life, an expression of the "^^
"Henri was
a
good
and an
artist
technical side
painting,
which
was
a
little
weak.
He was sold
Walter Tittle noted that Henri predicted
was
to the
who
a renaissance:
much
Hopper echoed when he as his
own
"A
school of
asserted that an artist ex-
personality in art.
Hopper
Henri's "courage and energy," which he believed did
course of art in this country."
much
He asserted: "No single figure
later
to
wrote of
"shape the
in recent
Ameri-
can art has been so instrumental in setting free the hidden forces that can the art of this country a living expression of its character and
command
that his students interpret
life
its
make
people."^*"
around them coincided
with the goals of the Muckrakers, the group of contemporary writers
sought to arouse public opinion by exposing greed, corruption, and evils
in
and not the same old
will paint their personalities,
this that
presses nothing so
Henri's
life.
economy of means
led to a certain meretriciousness of brush work."^^
artists will arise
thing."^^ It
in-
He taught broadly. He dealt
teacher.
not just with the meticulous things of painting but related painting to
The
42
/
such as slums and prostitution. Their sensational
stories,
who
social
featured in
Defining the Talent:
1
8gg- 1 go6
4^
/
popular magazines like Cosmopolitan and McClure's, ultimately had an effect
on both
and
art
literature.
that any subject
was
Their
efforts served to reinforce Henri's suggestion
possible for a painting.
Henri's real-world concerns were balanced by Hopper's other important teacher,
begun
Kenneth Hayes
his study at the
Only
Miller,
six years
older than Hopper, Miller had
Art Students League under the conservative teacher
Kenyon Cox, but he and several other male students were expelled in 1896 bursting in on the women's life class, which was strictly segregated.^'' The fenders sought out Chase,
for of-
who was then considered a progressive and who no
longer taught at the League, which he regarded as too conservative. These
became the nucleus of the Chase School of Art.
students
Since 1899, ^^^ Y^^^ before Hopper's arrival. Miller had taught sketching, composition, and life classes, as well as illustration. He stressed spatial organization, recession,
the picture plane.
fluence on
much
work of his
modeling forms
Hopper
"in the round,"
later credited Miller
and
a consideration
of
with having "a fine sober in-
of our contemporary painting."^^ Miller might critique the
students in his
life class
daily as they
worked before
the model,
and then Chase would view the same work the following Monday.^^ Vachel Lindsay recounted that Miller told him that he believed ioned drawing than the school allows him to teach.
Walter Tittle described Miller
ments that students learn their
wings
either
in real flight.
"^^
to
in
"more old
fash-
"^"^
as "quite conservative then in his require-
draw
in a
sound, academic
way
before trying
Miller did not have the dominating personality of
Chase or Henri. Rockwell Kent
later
compared
their three teachers,
explaining that Chase had taught the students to use their eyes, Henri to enlist
their hearts, while Miller insisted that they use their heads.
that Miller
emphasized the importance of style
and saw
Kent believed
this as a corrective to
Henri's neglect of it.
Utterly disregardful of the emotional values which Henri sistent
was
so in-
upon, and contemptuous of both the surface realism and
tuosity of Chase, Miller,
an
either, exacted a recognition
elements of composition
—
artist in a far
of the
line
more precious
tactile qualities
and mass
—not
as a
vir-
sense than
of paint and of the
means toward
the
recreation of life but as the fulfillment of an end, aesthetic pleasure.^^
Miller's
emphasis on aesthetics may have reinforced Hopper's reluctance
to
discuss the implicit content of his work.
Hopper's students.
who
abilities
were recognized by both
Kent remembered him
as "the
his teachers
and
his fellow
John Singer Sargent of the
class"
could be counted upon to turn out "an obviously brilliant drawing" on
EDWARD HOPPER
Edward Hopper, [Nude Female Model Posing Art],
c.
igoo-igo^.
/
in Class,
The New York
School of
44
Defining the Talent: the occasions
8gg- 1 go6
1
when
mocked
the older students
a neophyte/'^
This was no
Hop-
sHght comphment, for Sargent was one of the painters most revered. per's
humor
won him
repeatedly
who
Rodin show
at the
friends.
He was
one of a group, which also
Tod Lindenmuth, and
included Tittle, Morie Ogiwara, tickets to a
45
I
National Arts Club in
others,
May
who
received
1903 from Henri,
The
believed that "Rodin had unusual understanding."^'**
next week.
"made some burlesques La Vieille Femme.^'^ Walter Pach recalled that Ogiwara, who took Rodin more seriously than Hopper, produced "drawings of immense fineness, of delicate sentiment and humor" and that Henri had singled out Ogiwara's drawing of a nude woman, claiming that "only a Japanese could have done it."^" Ogiwara left for Tittle noted that
Hopper and two other
students had
of Rodin," among them Hopper's drawing
Paris the following tor in his
own
autumn, where he became
right,
sculpture to Japan.
after the sculptor's
a disciple of Rodin's.
A
sculp-
he eventually pioneered in introducing Western-style
^'
Far from leaving school. Hopper was encouraged to stay by growing recognition. life
At the annual spring concours of
1903, he
won
a scholarship in
drawing along with Patrick Henry Bruce and Hilda Belcher. ^^ Bruce
left
school to go to Paris in late 1903; in a letter to Henri in February 1904 he said
had expected Hopper
that he
knowledging news received oil
ing of a
woman
from Henri.^^ Hopper had won
in a letter
du
painting, while
prize in
to receive the painting prize, evidently ac-
Bois got
first
mention.^"*
first
Then Hopper's draw-
opening an umbrella was selected by the faculty
for repro-
duction in an article on the school published in the Stretch Boo^ of April 1904.'''
to
Henri from
In another letter to
count of the year's
final concours,
Paris,
Bruce responded
to Henri's ac-
saying he wished he could have been there
have seen the work, "especially Hopper's," and inquiring: "What kind of
special scholarship did
he
get,
and
will
Hopper would continue
year?"'^' In fact.
he continue for
two more
at the
School another
years.
He
received not
only encouragement, scholarships, and prizes, but also the opportunity to teach at the school.
Further evidence survives of Bruce's affection for Hopper. for Paris, he
gave Hopper
an unfinished painting.
Bruce boldly, painted across painted
his own
entire back.
On
its
When
he
left
name Hopper
bears the
face, the thrifty
self-portrait in another direction, covering
ished portrait study.
Beginning
its
The canvas
up
Bruce's unfin-
^^
in the
cluding drawing from
autumn of life,
1904,
Hopper taught Saturday
painting, sketching,
classes, in-
and composition. His fellow
members for this all-day session were Douglas Connah, the ownerdirector, and Wladyslaw Theodor Benda, another Henri student and, later, an illustrator whom Hopper would encounter at the Penguin (>lub. Alfaculty
EDWARD HOPPER
though Saturday students were considered
Club Night,
embody
it
for
was George Bellows, who painted
in 1907/^
this
Hopper.
Brown's gymnasium with
recalled attending fights at
dent; perhaps
than the regulars,
less serious
appointment represented important recognition
He
4^
/
his first
a fellow stu-
boxing picture,
Although Hopper enjoyed boxing, which seemed
masculinity and power, he did not like to paint action.
humorous
He
to
confined
theme into a Even though he admitted attending baseball games as a child, he did not join Bellows, du Bois, Kent, and the others who fielded a baseball this interest to the
sketches, never developing the
painting.
team against National
their arch rivals, the
Academy of Design.
Art Students League, or the school of the
^'^
Student enthusiasm extended to
political
corridors and classrooms. Ibsen, Tolstoy, and
and Rockwell Kent remembered laire
and the French Decadents
that
and
aesthetic debates in the
Shaw were
of special interest,
"Eugene Sue, Verlaine, and Baude-
in general
were read and admired. "^^^ The
milieu was congenial to Hopper, with his reading of Russians in translation, particularly
Turgenev and
About
Tolstoy.^^
1903, he
made
several
pen and
ink drawings for poems by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven" and "The Bells."
Given the students'
attraction to the
French Symbolists and Decadents,
it is
Hopper reading Poe, whom the Symbolists admired more than any other American. Poe's theme of anguish at death in "The Raven," and the gloomy bird Hopper depicts, recall the absorption with not surprising to find
death already discernible in Hopper's childhood sketches and recurrent
throughout
his
life.
Neither ringleader nor hermit. Hopper was one of "the fellows" a friend
would miss when venturing abroad
to retrace the steps of Henri to Paris. ^"
could be counted on for a limerick and the regular charade to haze dents. Yet unlike
YMCA
some of
the
more independent
spirits,
He
stu-
lived at the
or boarding houses, he continued to go back each evening to his
mother's bed and board, at least for the
first
few
years. It
town
for the theater or perhaps even the school dances.
aged
to find a small studio
rible place, "^^
At
who
new
it
on Fourteenth
was not much of a
Street,
was hard
to stay in
When at last he man-
which he described
as "a ter-
habitation.
the school dances, female students were provided with cards for pre-
arranging a partner for each dance. "Ho" appears several times on two of
Emma
Story's
building.
opened
The
undated dance cards.
^"^
The
socials
were held
big sliding doors between the men's and
for the occasion; cookies
in the school
women's
and lemonade, but no
liquor,
Hopper, Glenn Coleman, and possibly others designed posters
and Crafts Dance,
a
masquerade
ball,
studios
were
were served. for the Arts
held there on January 29, 1905.
Defining the Talent:
Hopper,
1
8gg- 1 go6
as paintings
/
47
and drawings show, continued and developed
his
childhood fascination with theater, encouraged
Hopper probably went
now
Barrymore
to see Ethel
as
House, which his classmate Vachel Lindsay saw in
admired Ibsen
cially
ture of the
for portraying "a state of life
Hopper made
race."*^''
Norwegian playwright and he
mance
Emma Story recalled.^'
Bellows in 1910, the
the
possible at least to
it is
Henri portrayed
Ellen Ravencroft,
dock, and
He may
Emma, who would marry George women who frequented the New York
Women
the female
faced many obstacles to members of Henri's classes
achieved fame comparable to the men. In addition to
later,
as to the fu-
Colonial Vaudeville Theatre, a perfor-
at the
None of
whom
Doll's
1905/^ Henri espe-
and questions
continued to admire his works.
School in Hopper's day are difficult to trace.
Nivison,
A
Apart from
names of
success in the art world.
May
in Ibsen's
several early illustrations referring to the
later
have seen Charlie Chaplin
also
by Henri's enthusiasm.
Nora
in
student guise and
document
Emma
the lives of Edith Bell,
Madge Huntington, Edith Haworth,
Mary Rogers. Ethel Klinck Myers,
Amy Londoner,
Ethel Louise Pad-
like Nivison,
reer subordinated to that of her husband, the painter
and Josephine
Hopper married much
found her
own ca-
Jerome Myers. Nivison
never specified the exact years she studied at the school because she tried to conceal her age and pretended to others that she was
ward.
It is
however, that she was
certain,
when Henri
at the school
much younger
than Ed-
between 1904 and 1906,
painted her portrait (page 152).
Women students found Hopper attractive. Emma Story, who came from New Jersey, recalled that she first met him while crossing
Upper Montclair,
Hudson on
the
promising, she
the ferry. ^^
fell
Although she considered him talented and
for the attentions of the dashing, athletic Bellows.
also
knew Edith
met
Jo through her.
who like him came from Nyack, and he may have first Hopper asked another young woman, Hetty Dureyea, to
Bell,
pose for several portraits that he painted in
oil.
Dureyea was responsible
arranging an exhibition of Japanese prints that took place she apparently developed an interest in a fellow later
Hopper's mother wrote to him
spond that he was "sorry
him
Hopper
"a born crook.
to hear that
in Paris
at the school.
for
But
named Connaugh, because made him re-
with news that
Connaugh
has 'done' Hetty in," calling
"^^
Ever introspective. Hopper often contemplated himself at
this time, fre-
Numerous oil self-image, but many
quently filtering his observations through his sardonic wit. self-portraits reveal that
he reflected seriously upon his
caricature sketches on paper poke fun at his appearance.
himself as a diligent art student hard
at
He
wittily depicted
work, showing himself,
in
one ex-
ample, with his ungainly body chained to the fioor so that he could concen-
EDWARD HOPPER
on
trate
By
drawing board while seated on one of the uncomfortably low
his
were
stools that
to earn
/
a part
May
late
1905,
of the school furniture.
Hopper was growing
some money. Classmates such
restless in school
and was eager
Walter Tittle and Clarence Coles
as
had already begun working as illustrators. Tittle reported that "Ed Hopper down at school has decided to try illustrating. He has been in school for years."*^" Hopper began to work part-time for C. C. Phillips and Company, a New York advertising agency founded by Coles Phillips, who had attended the New York School of Art in 1905. Working in the new agency's Phillips
offices at 24 East
Twenty-second
Street,
Hopper produced cover designs
trade magazines such as the Bulletin of the
New
lustrated the advantages of electric light in the
for
York Edison, where he
il-
man
in
home
by depicting a
colonial dress struggling to read by candlelight. Phillips closed his agency the
next year to pursue his
Hopper's
when John
last
own
very successful career as an illustrator.
experience with a
new
commission. This was Hopper's
trait
he admired and
who,
like
later
first
meeting with Sloan, whose work
From March
wrote about.
14
through April
13,
Sloan,
Henri, had studied with Anshutz, took Henri's place criticizing the
men's morning life class.
teacher was in the spring of 1906,
Sloan taught classes for Henri to free his friend to work on a por-
He
tremendous
the afternoon portrait class,
life class,
and the men's evening
noted in his diary: "The pupils show the results of Henri's
ability as a teacher."*^^
Seven years had transformed Hopper's
generic talent into a vocation for painting, validated by intense practice and
exchange, by praise and scholarships from teachers, and by the affectionate
esteem of peers.
He had
ing twice as long at the
diligently studied
New
and found himself at home,
York School of Art
For the moment he had acquired
a palette.
More
as the
teachers reputedly said that he it
"is
the kind of artist
who could
and
Edmund
grown from
One
of his
not be taught
for himself."'^^
The example of teachers like Chase and Henri and Bois,
fit.
far-reaching, his philosophy
about his calling had been permanently enriched and shaped.
anything; he had to learn
stay-
founder thought
Graecen suggested the next
step.
friends like Bruce,
du
Hopper's horizons had
the world of illustrators to encompass Hals, Rembrandt, and
Velazquez, as well as the moderns like Courbet, Millet, Daumier, and Manet,
who were touted by Henri and Chase. His accomplishment in New York had who now understood more clearly where his talent
also educated his parents,
could lead. With their financial support. Hopper embarked for Paris in the fall
him
of 1906. Not even Henri and the intensity of student for the challenges to his character
capital of art.
and values
life
had prepared
that awaited in the
world
$[DUCTIV[ PARIS:
190H907
EDWARD ARRIVED
in the
twenty-four.
was not
It
IN
PARIS
to be a
York.
The
to la vie
1906,
grand tour conducted through
duction to academies or grandes personnes,
had been prone
autumn of
still less
Through
Jammes
lived with
would be
on October
two teenaged sons
the perfect
Edward found time by
24,
in
New
in the Baptist mission in Paris,
in
rooms
A widow named
at the top
of the build-
home away from home. Reaching the
which he addressed with nothing
of intro-
their church, Elizabeth
the Eglise Evangelique Baptiste, located at 48, rue de Lille.
ing. It
letters
an escapade. If Edward
boheme he would already have had occasion
family network was religious.
and Garret Hopper found Edward lodgings Louise
whcn he was
the thirtieth for his
so generic as
rue de Lille
first letter
home,
"Dear ones" or "Folks" or "My
dear parents" but simply to his mother:
I
write you this from
and plenty Paris
Madame Jammes where
I
have
a
good room
to eat.
is
a very graceful
and beautiful
city,
almost too formal and
sweet after the raw disorder of New York. Everything seems to have
been planned with the purpose of forming a most harmonious whole
which has
certainly been done.
Not even one
jarring note of color
is
/
49
EDWARD HOPPER
/
there to break the dismal tone of the house front, which sal
50
a univer-
is
grey or buff.
Then
too, the trains
and buses work with
which can only have been obtained
sion
The
remarkable
streets are
and
a regularity
preci-
after years of experience.
for their cleanliness
and
their shop-
windows which are undeniably attractive and seem to be right upon the street itself. As much time and thought seems to have been spent on every a
little
tobacco or butcher shop as
department store Every
priests,
in
street here
New is
is
spent for the
York and they are
alive
with
all sorts
nuns, students, and always the
all
window of
supremely clean.
and condition of people,
little
wide red
soldiers with
pants.
The Frenchmen for the most part are small and have poor physiques. You will not see here as you do on "Broadway" the finely young fellows with
built
their strong, well cut features.
French must conceal "the goods" somehow or they are on the spot
when
However, the
other, as
we know
the time comes, in spite of their litde
beards & long shoes.
The
climate here seems very mild to me.
I
do not believe they
have the biting cold of New York, nor do you see here the deep blue sky and gorgeous sparkle of color
seems I
to be pitched in a
have
run
just
to the
part very bad, although
shows I
at
we have
at
home. Everything
milder key.
"Autumn Salon" and found it for much more liberal in its aims
it is
the
most
than the
home.
hope you are doing
as well as could be expected
Your son &
and remain
heir
E. Hopper'
Calmly Edward supposes pressions of Paris.
Edward
that his mother's real interest will be in his im-
Having sought
looks outward to
make
to reassure her that
he
is
properly settled,
his first sketch of the city.
Almost by the
book, he checks off the topics expected of the traveler: the general form and color,
some
particulars of transport, streets, shops, picturesque types, the
French physique and character, climate, glance at the art scene.
light
The whole and some
and color again, with
a first
sound more than
a little
parts
academic, yet hints emerge already of his particular vision. For the
first
time
Nyack shows what he had seen and felt in the passage to New York "raw disorder." The consciousness of contrast quickens his imagination. Similar shocks and images of contrast would accompany each further the boy from
—
Seductive Paris:
I
go6- 1 goy
crossing and confrontation in his
and
dissociation
5/
/
The shocks would
life.
register in his art as
ironic dissonance.
The contrast between New York and Paris organizes other perceptions. Edward picks out that which merits praise in Paris by explicit or implicit powith
larity
New
opposite in
its
urban
details of daily
painter but fascinated
York: transport, the
ity
human
quirks and dramas, right
Edward
with the
contrasts the
street reality
the time comes."
meant
to
reversed.
"Broadway"
With stage
of scrawny French
Edward,
his usual
penchant for carica-
image of American masculin-
who nonetheless "are on the spot may well have
the buff of military history,
underscore a contrast between unprepossessing physique and na-
tional military prowess. Yet his language, structurally
and metaphorically,
with the theme of French renown in love. His irony brings him willyhe nor his mother would wish to address di-
nilly to a subject that neither rectly.
was
Sexuality
there, always, in expectation because of the
image of French mores and bohemian tle
the
to the soldier in red pants.
when
flirts
—
shops^
that would have escaped notice by an academic Hopper and other students of Henri. New types of
On one score the values get ture,
and
life
people strike the eye that always sought out
down
streets,
men
The
prompted elaborate
in curious shoes
New York
Paris.
that grazed the issue of sexuality.
first
recall
And
lit-
of theatrical images in
this
deeper and more provocative spurs to imagination lay
common
glimpse of strange
was only the in
start.
Far
wait and not only in
the streets outside the Baptist mission.
how far he was from imagining the state of his
Edward's even tone shows mother's feelings,
would drive his
her.
how deep
her anxiety would run and to what lengths
Three days before Edward found time
mother had written
in a
way
that
provoked
a
it
for his first dispatch,
mixture of affection and
ironical self-defense in another letter:
I
received yours of the twenty-seventh and read the contents care-
fully.
I
sistent
find in
my room in so
it
a tendency
towards sentimentality which
with your hardy Anglo-Saxon nature. is
told with
much
The
little
tenderness and pathos, but
is
not con-
incident of
if
you
persist
exposing your true heart, our friendship must cease.
Hoping
that
you are bearing
it
bravely,
Your male
I
remain
child
E. Hopper.
Invoking
his mother's
place for stern
"hardy Anglo-Saxon nature," a cultural common-
and repressive character,
in
order to check her feelings, Ed-
EDWARD HOPPER
ward
/
betrays
his. Later, as
would
its
presence in himself.
same stereotype
Edward's personal and
The Hoppers'
I
artistic
of both.
this winter.
if she
write
On November know
you
let
that
hope you are improving and
I
I
am
cares to as
I
went
before.
him
The
sure
it
I
16,
am
he answered simply:
well and having a
will be able to
would do you good.
me
as
I
Edward
Tell
go some-
Marion
never
to
Do not
felt better in
Edward
felt
am
weighing and revising
to hyperbole,
at
Madam
and do not need
Hopper redoubled her
Jammes,
as
a studio as yet.
would be pleasant were
it
I
view of
doubts.
One week
later,
have been painting out-of-doors
The weather
don't seem to
The
mind
it
has been very mild and
down at the The Parisiens
not for the rain which comes
most unexpected moments, even out of
alive
his
obliged to write yet again:
still
times.
sweeping and
assessment was hardly well calculated to have the
desired effect, for Elizabeth
I
du Bois
an obstacle to
illness.
better" sounds uncharacteristically
felt
confident. Paris tempts that
as
it
life.''
For him, "never
all
his friend
see
should like to hear from her or father.
give yourself a lot of useless worry about
my
life,
and
growth.^
write you this in order to
good time.
in his character
plan had reckoned with neither anxiety nor
to realize the gravity
where
uneasy with emotions, hers and
is
he hesitated on the threshold of adult
identify the
was slow
He
52
though
a clear sky.
as they are in the streets
people here in fact seem to
and
live in the streets,
from morning until night not as they are
in
cafes at
all
which are
New York with that
never ending determination for the "long green," but with a pleasure loving it
crowd
that doesn't care
what
it
does or where
goes, so that
it
has a good time.
Remember me
to
your husband and
Yours
The young man's attention
truly, E.
tell
Marion
to write.
Hopper.^
has clearly shifted from the general
and the scattered Parisian types
to the
phenomenon of
crowds, and to their motives. Again his vision doubles, comparing
and
Paris.
The "Anglo-Saxon"
harmony
the cafe and the
New York
sense of discipline and duty bristles at the
spectacle of people bustling about not for business but for pleasure.
Edward's dispatches did not
avail.
confidence. Losing faith in her Baptist friends, credentials, until
Edward
felt
Hopper suffered a crisis of she kept demanding further
Elizabeth
driven to write his
sister:
Seductive Paris: i()o6- 1 goj
My
/
5^
dear Marion:
Mother has been
Jamme
[sic],
that
I
Madam
so persistent in her inquiries about
feel that
I
should answer although
an awful
it's
bore.
Madam Jamme
think at one time was in very good circum-
I
through some misfortune has
stances, but
everything. This
lost
misfortune drove her mother insane and finally killed her. lieve,
was
also responsible for the death of her
that she has suffered a great deal.
same be-
It, I
husband. So you see
Her bad fortune however has not
embittered her as she has an extremely kind heart and a very fine sense of humor.
very
boarder]
Her
sons,
who are sixteen and
and look much
tall
is
Suffice to Louise
it
The
little
eighteen years old are
French lady [another
not French but an Irish American whose
Francisco. She has lived in
long time.
older.
I
hope
this will suffice
regarding
my
domestic
did not. Elizabeth had the minister's wife,
Jammes, who replied reassuringly
at the
home
is
in
Madam Jamme
Europe and known
Ada
San
for a
affairs.^'
Saunier, write
beginning of December:
More than a month has passed over since your young friend Mr. Hopper has arrived in our home. We all like him & we think that he is a good American fellow. He seems happy in beautiful Paris & has begun his work & as his dear mother is so far away Miss Cuniffe [the Irish American boarder] & I try to be mothers to him so that he must not ever feel homesake. if the
wether were only
in this season
We three went together to Sevre on the boat,
of the year
must be contented
we would go to ever so many places, but, the days begin to be short & wise people
fine
in all
circumstances even in
la belle
France.
Mr. Hopper's mother must not be anxious of her son for he very quiet
&
so reserve
&
is
&
has a most delicate soul of refinement
with his sweet smile & his true look in his eyes will over the globe. For his mother's sake
I
sincerely
make
friends
hope that he
all
will be-
come master over master is a son not the crown of its mother's head? Our best souvenirs to your dear husband. ... shall write a line to Mrs Hopper.^ I
Nyack and two in Paris, Edward was well tended. city would profit from the enthusiasm of eager and gen"kind heart and a very fine sense of humor" as he said of
Between one mother His discovery of the erous guides, with a
Louise Jammes.
The
in
flutter
of confidences the boy inspired took on a
own. Elizabeth wrote Louise, who replied
in
life
February of the next year:
of its
EDWARD HOPPER
/
Your
letter
buts,
you should had long ago the acknowledgement of thanks &
deserved an earlier answer, but, were
gratitude for having placed on this
not for
it
Hemisphere such
5^
the
all
a fine boy as
your son. I
Lady & her name
we
who makes
have a friend is
home with us she is an American well we call your son mama's boy &
her
Miss Cuniffe
My
both are his mothers since his arrival.
two boys
are also very
how well he looks. He man you would be astonished to hear him converse if he continues you may call him with the time Victor Hugo. Dear Mrs Hopper why don't you come to Paris it would be fond of Mr. Hopper. You ought to see your son
parlez frangais like a french
accompany your son in our Musees to admire Chef d'Oeuvre of the ancients gods & also to bow to Luxor have
recreation for you to the
you not
your Central Park?
his brother in
Should you
see
Mrs or Mr Saunier
them our most gracious souvenirs
One whose
a sister in the
Mr. Hopper kisses to his dear
.
.
.
would you kindly present
&
until then
blood was shed for
ever
more
me
believe
us.
already in bed otherwise he would send love
is
mama &
At twenty-four, Edward was
papa &
still
&
sister.^
a "fine
boy" and "mama's boy," as indeed he
perceived himself, fortunate to have fallen in with friends not only affectionate but generous,
Louise
proud of French culture and eager
Jammes turned out
show
to
it
around.
more than his family had bargained. No one Hopper to Paris, nor that the intended stu-
to be
projected the transfer of Elizabeth
dio
would fade before
the unexpected comforts of home on the rue de Lille.
Edward opened an almost ting over an illness that "I
hope you are
note: "I
had required both
well, fat,
was glad
and
spise in
a nurse
jolly as usual.
to learn that
you are
What
tolerably stupid at home."^^^
in
"'^
New
A
ports of the city
his solicitude
and the weather,
he struck a nasty
York again,
as
it
must be
mother both found
in
his re-
about his person, which he
parried, not about to bare his soul:
You ask me always and
my
to tell
about myself and
clothes that concerns you,
—
suppose
therefore
—
on underwear
1.
buttons are
2.
heavy underwear
3.
light
still
I
underwear
is
fast
still
in
going
in-
to de-
New York, is not clear.'^
and expressed impatience with
in her inquiries
get-
and confinement indoors:
bit later,
the son and the
Nyack, and where Elizabeth took refuge
His mother answered
mother was
jocular vein seeing that his
to pieces
good condition.
it is
my
as follows:
health
Seductive Paris:
i
go6 -igoy
55
/
4.
new
5.
old clothes are fast
necktie must be bought soon
becoming covered with paint
—green
spots predominating (owing to spring) 6.
have turned band on hat
7.
hairs have ceased to
8.
had moustache
9.
cut
it
10. this is 1
1.
for
out in such large quantities
fall
two weeks
off it
[sketch of mustache]
have been darning hose (which
is
proper side to do
it
on?
—
have tried both inside and out. 12. I
am
fat in the face
never have received a
able that the
French
hieroglyphics, or
In either case
any time
The
ironic
to
I
from "Charity,"
so
it is
very prob-
postal officials have been unable to decipher her
it is
very possible
it
has gone on to China or Japan.
would not encourage her
waste on disagreeable old
charm of
shadowed by
letter
his checklist,
with
to write again as
I
haven't
ladies.'"
its
touches of
the close. Breaking his usual decorum,
self-satire, gets
Edward
over-
refers to his
long-widowed grandmother Charity Blauvelt Hopper, enclosing her
first
name in quotes as if to suggest that her personality did not live up to it. His manner jars, and his tone matches the "awful bore" and "intolerably stupid" of previous letters in suggesting a dimension of Hopper very different from the "mama's boy" admired by Louise Jammes for his "delicate soul." Years later Alfred Barr, after interviewing Hopper, reported that he had "lived in a respectable
French
literature,
French family studying French, reading extensively
and avoiding bohemia."'^ The painter himself once admit-
ted that his only concession to his surroundings near the Latin Quarter thin red "it
mustache which he grew
looked
in
in his
home
base,
encouraged by
palette. It
weather, as
was
a
much
as his training
Hopper work out-
with Henri and Chase, affected his
wet and cool autumn, even
for Paris.
stances ofla belle France, he started by painting at
of the courtyard, the interior staircase leading to
view of windows and
a
mansard roof seen
American version of Second Empire
Adapting
to the
circum-
home: small somber panels
Mme. Jammes's apartment, a window railing. In the roof,
across a
he found a familiar shape that he had admired
From
a
his solicitous guides,
gradually reached out, though he soon learned that rain could limit
The
was
April 1907 but soon shaved off because
silly."'"^
Secure
side.
in
in
Nyack, on houses
built in the
style just before his birth.
the rue de Lille, he ventured into the near neighborhood, turning
the corner into the rue de Bac
and walking the block
to the Seine,
where he
EDWARD HOPPER
painted the
/
embankments with bridges and
pedestal seen before a corner of the Louvre,
dered his
in a
stairways, a sculpture on a
and
around the He du
is
from the top of the
most paintable
a
particularly
city,
upon which was the
Cite,
streets are very old
story
which gives them
hundreds of pipes and chimney pots
Mansard type and streets,
a
most imposing and
The
either of grey slate or zinc.
and the open windows of the houses
Even
On
few yards distance. This may
must be seen
to be
into the air giving
roofs are
On
the
a
day
all
of the
that's
over-
at the
end of the
in the trees,
and under
It's
man's coat becomes a deep blue grey
a
all
mean nothing
could give you a glimpse of the real Paris it
up
stick
same blue-grey permeates everything.
the arches of the bridges. at a
the
shops and stores beneath are dark red or
the sky line a most peculiar appearance.
cast, this
on and
Here
first Paris.
green, contrasting strongly with the plaster or stone above. roofs
ren-
and narrow and many of the houses slope back first
The wine
solid appearance.
latter,
impression of
reflects the
that he described for his sister:
must know
Paris as you
The
a street scene.
simple but dramatic blue-gray tonality,
new surroundings
56
understood.
And
it
I
to you, but
would be doing
will
well.
if
I
For
have a different mean-
ing for each.
Yours
truly. Ed.'^
After the academic generality of his
month working with
and colors
Parisian shapes
with
New York.
to
what
lies
more
that he
is
the painter has spent the
so absorbed in the concreteness of
no longer thinks primarily of comparison
him
that he speaks in terms of an ideal, a
how "paintable" the city is in itself. This is what sweeps him mind. He passes from an academic sense of general har-
his
specific observation, in the
manner encouraged by Henri, of
The
loving detail of his report reveals
around him
acute visual sensibility:
him than
first bulletin,
By now he
Paris so captivates
kind of absolute,
up and focuses
mony
his eyes.
whom
close to hand.
what Hopper saw usually became more important
Hopper's eyes and their
affair
with Paris preempt the next week's
letter
as well:
Here
in the
Grand
Palais
mination of the building
on the self
for
he met or what he did.
Eiffel
we have an automobile show, and
is
most
tower was playing
could not be seen
comet away up
it
beautiful. Last night the search light all
over the
city,
looked like nothing so
in the air.
I
the illu-
and
as the
much
do not believe there
is
tower
it-
as a gigantic
another
city
on
Seductive Paris:
i
go6 -igoj
/
57
earth so beautiful as Paris, nor another people with such an appreci-
There
ation of the beautiful as the French.
always some sort of an
is
exhibition going on here either of pictures sculpture or the industries
and everybody I
wish that
make you
could
I
which they hold them.
—
it is
hard
theatres
its
the importance the public
Coming from
a place
where everybody
des Capucines
and coloured
another wonderful place
is
The crowd
lights.
here
at night
so thick in the
is
also lined with cafes
evening that one can hardly get through.
It is
where the Demimondaines
hatted boulevardiers.'^'
To Marion
the previous
sit
with the
more than
visual terms, the
dimension
colors along streets
mother he had sketched,
to his
crowds forever looking
in social
Now
for pleasure.
he
admire, again by contrast with America: appreci-
to
and veneration
ation of the beautiful
silk
week he had described forms and
imagined virtually empty. Earlier
finds a social
in
for
is
to grasp.
The Boulevard with
know
to
alike.
have for the people and the veneration and respect
institutions
himself
and the poor
interested the rich
is
At the same
for institutions of culture.
time he makes no secret of the growing vividness and concreteness of his perception of street
life:
the animated
and illuminated boulevard, and now the
defining form of its inhabitants. Scarcely into his second month, his eye fixes
on
a set of figures that
would have
a long
and intense history
in his
imagina-
He knows
their
names
and the couples of the demimonde.
tion: the cafe
French. As for the great tower, unlike his contemporary, the French ernist painter
Robert Delaunay, Hopper preferred
painted or sketched
invisible
mod-
and never
it.
new
Spring gave
it
in
play to the eye: Straw hats had been out for about a
week. The Tuileries Gardens were very fine with the sun and blue sky: "in
whole
fact the
parasols."''
We
city
is
alive
with color now.
The most tumultuous
have
just
sight
The women have
came
blue and red
latest:
had the carnival of the Mi-Careme,
it is
one of the im-
portant fetes of the year. Everyone goes to the "Grands Boulevards"
and
lets
himself loose.
The confetti
the dust arising from this
day
—
this
four inches deep in the street,
the air so that
it
seems
to be a
foggy
dust enveloped crowd and the confetti falling every where
like colored
too
fills
lies
narrow
snow for
its
is
a sight unique.
The crowd
finds the sidewalks
horseplay and takes to the road also.
ture these in costume, they are not for the
most
Do
not pic-
part, but here
and
two
girls
they you will see them, perhaps a clown with a big nose or
with bare necks and short skirts trying to escape the confetti which
EDWARD HOPPER
/
dozen bearded frenchmen are playfully forcing them
half a
Here too wearing
are always the students
their
— perhaps
gowns, and endeavoring
wild bohemianism
formidable after
—but mere boys
to
a
to eat.
crowd of art students
keep up
for the
5«
their reputation of
most part and not very
all.
The parade of the queens of the halles (markets) is also one of the They go through the streets on various floats some are pretty but look awkward in their silk dresses and crowns, particu-
—
events.
larly as the
broad sun displays their defects
—perhaps
a
neck too thin
or a painted face which shows ghastly white in the sunlight.
Withal
a tractable
it is
bounds of decency
step the
and peaceful crowd and does not over-
—
wide here) nevertheless there
Given the same
comport
liberties,
I
(possibly because the is little
am
bounds are very
drunkenness and
afraid an
less fighting.
American crowd would not
itself so well.^^
May was over, Edward had one last spectacle to report: and queen of Norway on parade instead of the queens of the halles: Before
Their entry was quite an occasion and
many
troops along the route.
good showing with
who
the infantry
The houses are flag,
and
however,
a beautiful sight.
The French
their helmets
and
are usually small
never seen.
There were
make
cavelry always
cuirasses, quite in contrast to
The "grand
The German
old rag" shows itself here
there.^^
This spectacle does not bring out the moral censor and the defensive as
to a fies
a
Edward can
Carnival had.
since
boyhood and remark on the
political
omen
the sign of home by playing with the phrase
grand old
of the absent
flag.
original
in Paris a
found
it
for the
agenda included not only the
fall in
with the
local
week before he had
was
Babbe, which that he
penchant "just
run
city
He resorts he identi-
patriotic song, "It's
but
a variation
Among
to the
Edward came
the thirty
'Autumn
in art school.
He had
not
Salon' and
his first extensive ex-
works
in Courbet's ret-
of Frans Hals's grotesque old
Hopper had sketched
admired Courbet,
its art.
for exhibitions.
most part very bad." What he saw was
posure to Courbet and Cezanne. rospective
from the
as
him
flag."
predisposed to
been
ironist
focus on the uniforms that had fascinated
mild irony only where affections are most nearly involved,
The
a
and have rather ugly uniforms.
decorated with the flags of the nations. is
the king
woman
Malle
Years later he admitted
citing his mechanical strength, but disliked
Seductive Paris:
I
gob-K^oy
who was
Cezanne,
/
represented in the Salon hy ten works, which
thought hicked substance and had
"Many Cezannes
plained:
a
59
Hopper
papery quahty."" Another time, he com-
are very thin.""'
As Hopper developed
own
his
volumetric sense, he rejected Cezanne's flattened forms in favor of Courbet's
more
traditional
modeling
in
order to delineate conventional relationships
That same quick tour exposed Hopper
in space.
quet, Felix Vallotton,
to
works by Albert Mar-
and Walter Richard Sickert, three
artists
who
used
themes that Hopper subsequently explored. Marquet presented prosaic views of Paris and
summary treatment of figures;"
Sickert and Vallotton of-
Hopper also had the work of several young American artists who managed his fond classmate, Patrick Henry Bruce, along with
fered intimate interior views with psychological drama.
opportunity to see the to get into the Salon:
Max Weber and Maurice Sterne. Bruce was among the first people Hopper saw
outside the rue de Lille.
Before he had been in Paris two weeks, he visited Bruce several times, one
The
evening as a guest for dinner.^^ veteran of the
year before Bruce had married another
New York School, Helen Kibbey. The couple lived in a charm-
ing garden on the boulevard Arago, where they entertained generously on a
modest budget. After Christmas, Hopper wrote have been very cordial whenever
I
to his
mother: "The Bruces
have called and Bruce
is
very
much more
agreeable than formerly.""^ At the Bruces', Americans had a habit of drop-
ping
"Here
by.
ness,""^
wrote
was talked of
art
Guy Pene du
called
back prematurely
close,
were frequent
Putnam
Daniel
mund
visitors:
Brinley,
Walter Pach,
with no funny busiin art school
a classmate,
Arthur Burdett Frost,
Jr.,
in Paris
December
but
now
father's death. Others, less
Maurice Sterne,
and Samuel Halpert. Edwith his wife, Ethol, a few 1906.
The Bruces
followed
with a son in April. Domestic focus pinched hospitality and shrank ca-
Du
Bois, of
have been a better In the
met
French heritage and
facilitator
autumn of
art.
artists
lively,
open demeanor, would
and guide.
1906, around the time of Edward's
the celebrated Stein family
Leo and Michael, and Michael's ern
Edward's familiar
prior to the birth of their son in
maraderie.
first
Bois, also
America because of his
Graecen, another classmate, settled
months suit
to
seriously, frowningly,
arrival, the
Bruces
from Baltimore. Gertrude, her brothers
wife, Sarah,
all
admired and
collected
mod-
Gertrude and Leo held salons on Saturday evenings that many young
attended.
work of the
Hopper
later credited
Bruce with introducing him
to the
Impressionists in Paris, "especially Sisley, Renoir, and Pissarro,"^^
and certainly could have met the Steins through Bruce, had he been so clined.
"Whom
Gertrude
did
Stein, but
to the cafes at night
I
I
meet? Nobody," he
later
remarked.
don't recall having heard of Picasso at
and
sit
and watch.
I
went
"I'd
all.
I
in-
heard of used to go
to the theatre a litde. Paris
had
EDWARD HOPPER
/
60
no great or immediate impact on me."^^ Another time he repeated that he had heard of Stein, but
About
insisted: "I wasn't
the only important person
I
know me.
important enough for her to
knew was
Jo Davidson,
and he was
will-
me only because I knew the girl he was going to marry, met her going over."^^ The woman in question was Yvonne de Kerstrat,
ing to look at
on the boat
an American
actress.
Often, the young American art schools,
They
Dame
never mentioned exhibitions.
Champs sponsored
des
this organization, yet
American
Max Weber,
son and
artists
abounded
Edward
Steichen, and
by
he must have visited
Lyman
at the
David-
MacDonald-
Sayen, Morton Schamberg,
commu-
In 1906, the expatriate
were talking about the work of Whistler (dead
of his mother they studied
numerous
its
in Paris at the time: besides Jo
Abraham Walkowitz.
on the
a social club
Rodman Wanamaker. Hopper
there were Lyonel Feininger, Stanton
Wright, John Marin, Alfred Maurer,
nity
famous
to Paris attended
American Art Association,
also congregated at the
rue Notre
who went
artists
such as the Academic Julian or even the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
in 1903),
whose
Luxembourg Gallery along with
portrait
the Caille-
botte collection of Impressionists.
American and English
artists
frequented the Cafe du
Dome
in
Mont-
parnasse, within walking distance from Hopper's place on the rue de Lille.
Unlike the long evenings with the Bruces, where talk flowed frowningly, with no funny business," and babies were on the talk by the artists in the cafes often ran to the turbulent
with the mistresses they found grisettes.
Cafe
its
dramas they created
among young French working
girls, les
was bohemian and sexual drama was a staple. It is no acciHopper so pointedly deprecated bohemia in writing, while
life
dent, then, that
taking
"seriously,
way or just born,
women
as frequent subjects for his art.
Fascinated, but divided between longing and fear,
Hopper made
a
pen-
woman endowed with a devil's tail and purrecalls the carnival sight of men throats of scantily clad girls. He also depicted a
and-ink sketch of a shapely nude
sued by several overly eager men: his scenario forcing confetti
down
the
nude standing provocatively by an open window, holding her hand face in a contemplative pose that anticipates certain
maturity.
The
images
to her
in paintings
of his
sketches confirm the impression conveyed by one or two
ters that sexuality
was on
his
mind. Despite
his strict
let-
upbringing, or perhaps
because of it, he was particularly drawn and repelled by the variety of prostitutes in the streets of Paris.
While Louise Jammes was writing tural values of Paris
was sizing up
to Elizabeth
Hopper about
the cul-
and the refmed soul of "mama's boy," Edward's eye
les filles
de joie.
He
did not
come
to the
encounter free from
prejudice or expectation. Experience with French art and literature and
Seductive Pa ris: igob-igoy
with
New
York conditioned what he perceived and drew. At
the United States, noisy
6
/
this
time
in
pubHc campaigns against prostitution were being
organized. Antivice agitators held outdoor prayer meetings and marches in the heart of urban red-hght
women
the importation of
would do
so again in 1907.
districts."'^
Congress passed legislation banning
for the purposes of prostitution in 1903
During the
of art school,
later years
and
Edward had
rented a studio on Fourteenth Street, where solicitation was aggressive and frequent.^"
But the Anglo-Saxon puritan
in
him could only wonder
at the
ously lax attitude toward prostitution he found in France in 1906. titutes'
demeanor
Hopper represented
also impressed him.
conspicu-
The
staring right out at the spectator, the artist himself, with a distinctly
hither look.
The
sketches suggest that Paris produced in
pros-
several in cafes,
him
a
come-
kind of sexual
awakening.
As
often
when
facing an excess of emotion,
ture, using watercolors to depict various types
able
women: La
Pierreuse, Fille de Joie,
Demi-mondaine. La pierreuse
is
Hopper
resorted to carica-
and degrees of sexually
Type de Belleville, La
Grisette,
avail-
and Une
slang for a street-walker, "she of the paving
stones." Fille de joie, "daughter of joy," refers to a tart, prostitute, or
any
woman of loose morals. Type de Belleville refers to a disheveled working-class woman from the colorful area that became for Hopper the French equivalent of the New York district that attracted artists like John Sloan, who also depicted prostitutes.^'
La grisette was
a
term with roots
dustrial development,
which attracted
work. The sobriquet refers a milliner, tain sexual
who
in the social
typically
to a
came
rural labor to the cities in search of
working
to Paris
girl,
usually a
young dressmaker or
from rural communities where
freedom was countenanced, but
would naturally ensue. Translated
displacement caused by in-
in a
a cer-
framework where marriage
to the isolation
and anonymity of the
city,
where bourgeois morality generally prevailed, these country mores conferred on
their bearers a
Latin Quarter,
The
romantic aura
who
in the eyes
of the students and
artists
of the
sought them out as mistresses.^^
easy virtue of Rigolette
Paris by
Eugene Sue,
scribed
and expressed
la grisette
had been featured
in Mysteries
a novel read by the boys at art school. ^^ fear of female sexuality,
Sue
of
also de-
which he embodied
in the
who exercises power to dominate and subdue the The theme clearly preoccupied Edward, to judge from
character of Cecily,
de-
fenseless male.^"*
the
woman with the devil's tail and his boyhood sketches of the enwoman and frail man. The t^xm grisette even migrated into English,
sketch of the gulfing in
popular accounts such as the chapter "The Ghost of the Grisette"
George Augustus
Sala's Paris Herself Again:
in
EDWARD HOPPER
/
Edward Hopper, Joie,
62
de
Fille
igo6-igoy. Watercolor
on composition board,
iiVh
X
gV/' (^0.2X2^.8 cm.).
pi^gjtAm^
,-V"«
Her manner of walking was matchlessly graceful and agile. The narrow streets of old Paris were, in those days, infamously paved. There was no foot pavement. The kennel was often in the centre of the street,
and down
it
rolled a great black torrent of impurities fear-
and smell. The manner in which the grisette would way over the jagged stones, and the dexterity with which would avoid soiling her neat shoes and stockings when ventur-
some
to sight
.
.
.
pick her
she
ing on the very brink of that crashing plashing kennel, were
won-
derous and delightful to view. She had an inimitable way, too, of
whisking the end of her
skirt over her
Sala also discussed other Parisian types that sergents de
ville,
Not only
arm
as she trotted along.^^
Hopper
portrayed, including the
the concierge, and the demi-mondaine.
literature,
prentice painter.
As
but art suggested the theme of prostitution to an ap-
a student,
Hopper based
a sketch in
pen and ink on
a re-
production of Manet's Olympia, that scandalous Parisian courtesan. At the Metropolitan
Museum, he had
also sketched the seductive figure of
Henri
Seductive Paris: i()o6- 1 goj
I
compared
Regnault's Salome, which had been in Paris in the Salon of
1870.^''
that
works by Toulouse-Lautrec,
appeared
appeared
in satirical
when
exhibited
Besides these two admired images, there were
representations of prostitutes everywhere the salons to
to a courtesan
^S
magazines
— from
the academic paintings in
as well as in
many of the caricatures
like L'Assietteau Beurre.^^ Prostitutes also
by Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Emile Zola. For
in novels
an avid reader like Hopper, books raised expectations through names that experience would connect with sights. Within a
month of his
arrival,
had recognized and was describing the demi-mondaines with the
Edward
"silk hat-
ted boulevardiers" to his mother.
Edward
often
went
observe and to sketch the pleasure seekers
to cafes to
he described as just people smoking, talking, or at their ease.
quick pen-and-ink figure sketches ionable
women
to soldiers
phrases such as "Tout
le
and
priests.
monde
He
wooden
He
shoes,
Occasionally he included
suit especially to dress
an elegantly coiffed
cummerbunds, and
berets.
French
a
in
to
go
to the
woman peering through river in their
workman, an
known
ouvrier
as a Piou-Piou,
cavalry officer in full regalia.
visual excitement he expressed in letters led to a
drawings,
French
A more finished group of pen-and-
with cigarette and bottle of cheap wine, the soldier
The
up
loved to watch the boatmen working along the
ink sketches of individual figures includes a muscular
and
little
he sketched himself in hats such as boaters
even purchased a tweed
opera.^^ In a theater, he recorded
her lorgnette.
with images that range from fash-
debarque" or "Les Americans." Assimilating
at least imaginatively to the scene,
or derbies.
filled
He made many
which he combined
of white paint.
He
number of elaborate wash, and touches
pencil, Conte, charcoal,
focused on groups of people in typical settings: travelers
boarding the train in a railroad station, poor people drinking beneath a bridge along the Seine, elegant shoppers along a street with
He drew
kiosk and mansard-roofed houses. its
way along
the
narrow Paris
street,
the Pantheon looming above the
poignant
is
a
drawing
figures standing
who
has
entitled
to death
from
characteristic
seen from the Seine. By far the most
the Quai:
on the walkway along the
jumped
its
horse-drawn carriage making
and elsewhere the impressive dome of
city, as
On
a
a bridge,
The
river
Suicide,
from which
down. Hopper's choice of the macabre subject
which depicts four
around the body of someone a spectator
now
Thomas Hood's poem about suicide, "The Bridge of Sighs." Ever alert ference, in
York,
manners
as in appearance,
Edward ventured
The church and
looks
recalls his earlier illustration
to dif-
and disaffected from the values of New
a political report:
the state are getting into another
the papers are full of
it.
Would
I
of
read French
mix-up here and
& could
tell
you about
EDWARD HOPPER
Edward Hopper, On
/
the Quai:
ly'Ax i^V/'(^^.^ Xjy.i cm.).
The
Suicide, igo6. Conte, wash,
and touches of white,
^4
Seductive Paris: In tact
it.
I
go6- 1 goj
/
65
though the French are a very mild mannered people, they
burst into flame at the slightest provocation.
was nearly
the professors of the Sorbonne
some unguarded words about Joan
—
A
short time ago one of
killed by the students for
of Arc, thus
do they
fight for the
home who
only
ar-e
(This controversy over Joan of Arc was instigated by the right,
who
tried to
sake of an idea
roused
when
turn her into an
quite in contrast to those at
their pockets are
endangered.
^'^
confronted Catholics with the
asset for the Nationalists: they
had been burned by the Church, and Royalists with the king's
fact that she
abandonment of her Expanding on
cause."*")
his
judgment of French
character,
Hopper wrote
to his
father:
The workman
here seems to be in a perpetual state of protest against
employer and the administration
his
this winter, electricians, bakers,
The Frenchman in say, if
not with
fact
He
—
a hard
strikes of
man
to
keep
down and
will
cafes.
have his
such as anti-
it,
which were torn down by the
police re-
the signers of which were arrested.'*^
sent his father a broadside
districts
announcing
a lecture by the
prominent
liber-
and anarchist Sebastien Faure attacking "La Dictature
tarian philosopher
Clemenceau" and reported of the
many
therefore the
permission, then without
official
militia proclamations
cently
is
—
and even the waiters of the
that the notice
of Paris near the
wall.""*"
"was given
to
me
at Belleville
one
Faure's struggle against the con-
of authority appealed to Hopper's contrarian nature. Hopper also
straints
asked his family whether they had formed an opinion on "the Japanese question," noting "I
bunch of them place.
dently
I
have none. There are in a cafe a
many
Hopper had
lost
saw
a
it
and about the music. ""^^ Evi-
touch with his Japanese classmate, Morie Ogiwara,
also then living in Paris."*^
the intensive local
I
few nights ago, and they looked strangely out of
wondered what they thought about
who was
Japanese students here.
His comments were made
news coverage of the defeat of France's
ally,
in response to
Russia, in the
Russo-Japanese War.
Taking advantage of the inexpensive quented the
and saw
ment
as
theater,
much
as
Julius Caesar at the is
he had
Odeon
—
the Theatre Frangais.'"*^
quelin in Cyrano de Bergerac
in
ticket prices.
New York:
"I
Hopper
also fre-
have been to the opera
they are both supported by the govern-
Another time he reported:
— he looked
pretty
good
the celebrated French actor, Contant-Benoit Coquelin.
"I
saw Co-
to me,"^^' referring to
EDWARD HOPPER
Spring turned Hopper's somber palette
to lighter tones
painting clothes with green. After a cold, wet winter, the especially glorious, the sunlight incredible:
anything
I
light
the bridges, there
warmed, he wrote:
am
"I
By
The
his
new
season seemed
was
different
was
a certain luminosity.'"*^
noted: "Paris
is
his easel
this time.
reflected light.
As
the weather
parks.'"*'^
He
usu-
along the Seine.
Hopper was showing
pastel tonalities of Renoir, Sisley,
lighter palette,
from
very beautiful in the sun and the
people never miss a clear day to be out in the street and the
up
and covered
well, in fact I've never felt better."^^ Delighted to be
work outdoors, he
ally set
66
had known. The shadows were luminous, more
Even under able to
"The
/
away from
the influence of the Impressionists.
and Monet encouraged
He
the teaching of Henri.
move
his
to a
later recalled:
I went to Paris when the pointillist period was just dying out. I was somewhat influenced by it. Perhaps I thought it was the thing I
should do. So the things paintings: he never fall]
—had
He
did in Paris
I
—
the
things
first
the earlier, darker, smaller
a rather pointillist
[on the 1909 trip]
more
I
showed
[i.e..
[i.e.,
large
works of the
Impressionist] method. But later
got over that and later things done in Paris were
the kind of things
I
do
now.^*^
could see Impressionist paintings in the galleries and salons, and in the
Caillebotte collection at the
Luxembourg. Under
their influence, he not only
lightened his palette, but he also painted with shorter, strokes, as
is
more broken brush-
apparent in works of 1907 such as Tugboat at Boulevard Saint
Michel and Le Louvre et la Seine. That year, he produced light-hued paintings with pink, blues, lavenders and yellows predominant, such as Pont du Carrousel
The
and Gare d' Orleans, Apres-midi de Juin, and Pont du Carrousel in
latter suggests that
begun
in 1900,
some of which he probably saw
Hopper's mention of
of Albert Marquet,
man eral
at the
"pointillist influence"
not directly affected by the painting of such spite his later denial,
Durand-Ruel
was misleading,
artists as
sites that
series,
gallery.
for he
was
Seurat or Signac. De-
he seems, however, to have been interested in the work
who followed up his part in the autumn Salon with a one-
exhibition at the Galerie Druet in February 1907.
of the
the Fog.
he was familiar with Monet's Waterloo bridge
Hopper would
Marquet painted
sev-
depict in the next few months, including
Notre-Dame, Quai des Grands -Augustins, Quai du Louvre, and Pont Neuf,
Temps de
Pluie. After
Hopper switched
to a
more subdued
palette
and took
a
prosaic simplified approach to his subjects, the results resemble Marquet's ordinary, nondramatic views of Paris. Like Marquet, he also adopted a style of
Seductive Paris: i()o6- 1 goy
summarizing the human
67
/
figure with a quick brushstroke as can be seen in
Le
Pont des Arts of 1907.
Another
Hopper developed
interest that
hiter he admitted that he
had once bought
chitectural details, but he
good photographer can get
the
was photography. Years from
sees things
a different
was amazed "by how much personality
Atget,^^
artistes" that
a
He later avowed admiration for who was then active in Paris producing
into a picture.
Eugene
"documents pour
in Paris
camera and taken pictures of ar-
lamented "the camera
angle, not like the eye."^' Yet he
the photography of
a
"^^
he supplied to
artists
looking for subject
among them Dunoyer de Segonzac, Andre Derain, and Man Ray. Like Atget, Hopper created a mood of melancholy and tended to convey a
matter,
Both he and Atget depicted such subjects
feeling of solitude.
stairway, Left
Bank
streets,
as
an interior
and bridges along the Seine. Hopper even took
the boat to nearby Saint-Cloud,
where
his painting
suggests familiarity with the photographs Atget
of the staircase in the park
made
there.
Both
artists
em-
phasized the sloping terrain and the rhythmic angularity of the architectural forms.
The
however, chose to compress
painter,
this space
through the use of
a characteristically flattened perspective.
Hopper reveled in the Paris spring. He watched the children playing in Luxembourg Gardens and went to hear music in the garden of the Tuileries.^^ He enjoyed the students on parade in the Luxembourg Gardens every Friday afternoon when the French army band played and all sorts of the
colorful
bohemian types emerged
American gawker's he commented was
He went
delight.
a
young
to the Salon des Independants,
which
to join in the festivities.^^ It
not "particularly good."^^ If he noticed the
Marin and the ever-present Max Weber, artists
ranging from Henri Rousseau
as well as
to Vassily
was
works by John
European avant-garde
Kandinsky, he gave no
sign.
Perhaps he liked the three landscapes by Marquet. In late May, he reported: "I
often taking the boat to sions
St.
am
painting out-of-doors
the time now,
Cloud or Charenton."^^ These were the excur-
on which he produced Canal LocJ^
Saint Cloud;
all
at Charenton;
Gateway and Fence,
Le Pare de Saint-Cloud; and other scenes along the Seine. These all painted in a rather harsh midday light, stressing muted
three canvases are
greens and grays.
Hopper
recalled that Paris
liked the physical aspect of the city. the river, painting
all.
I
the streets, along
under the influence of Impressionism, painting every-
thing in a high key for nearly a year. fluence, after
was "the apex of everything.
worked by myself in
I
Other than
painted very dark."^^
It
to lighten tones for
The hooks were
neighborhood of the rue de
was probably not
set
a strong, lasting in-
me. Henri's students
deeper than he cared to admit.
Lille stayed
with him and became
The
a place
of
EDWARD HOPPER
/
Edward Hopper in
68
Paris, igoy.
imagination: "I could just go a few steps and I'd see the Louvre across the river.
From
Coeur.
It
the corner of the Rues de Bac and Lille, you could see Sacre-
hung
like a great vision in the air
the familiar corner tow^ard the broad,
above the
open
vistas
city."^^
His
feet
turned
along the Seine and his
imagination soared. Before Christmas, w^hen Edw^ard wrote his mother about his
away from home, plication
seems
to
the occasion
moved him
to a confidence
first
holiday
of which the im-
have escaped even her vigilant eye:
On Christmas evening
I
went
to a
which games were played and
went with
platter; etc.
I
bonne, and
we
dinner at an English chapel "after
a pleasant
a very bright
derived considerable
programme, which consisted
evening enjoyed" spin the
Welsh
girl, a
student at the Sor-
amusement from
the evening's
chiefly of sentimental songs with the
h's omitted.^'"
Enid Marion Saies was
Mme. Jammes. Her
a brilliant
young woman who
also
boarded with
family had lived in Wales, but were actually English,
not Welsh, a distinction
initially
lost
on Hopper. Enid was three years
Seductive Paris:
younger than
go6- 1 goy
I
he,
like
tall
69
/
him
(five feet eight inches), slender,
and
pretty,
with dark brown hair and bright brown eyes. She was charming, had a de-
speaking voice and an infectious laugh/'
lightful
then
and
introduced
She had
Edward
religion, but her
came
to
sent her to a
him about ies,
intellectual, she
was
her second year at the Sorbonne, where she studied French literature
in
history.
too,
An
Quaker
visiting
little,
When
Great Britain, Hopper,
when an
who was
family had
interviewer asked
then in his early eight-
met
girl there I'd
strict
for
she,
in Paris
and we went
not much."^'^
Edward many years after their meeting and asked he answered: "I remember going to Versailles with you
Enid wrote
if he
remembered
and
to the
Opera
her,
to
to see
Mme. Jammes
gotten
English
little
which explains how
religious,
school in England. ^'^) Once,
knew an
may have
French authors. Like him, she cared
to various
mother was intensely
board above Eglise Evangelique Baptiste. (Her
recalled: "I
around a
languages and loved literature; she
a gift for
'Manon,'
think
I
it
was."
He
added:
"I
have not for-
kitchen with Miss Cuniffe speaking fluent, but bad
French and drinking too much
tea
—
—
I
remember
two gangling boys and
the
mud all over Paris but a wonderful city just the same."^"* Hopper took Saies, whom he liked to tease, on a number of excursions to tourist attractions such as Versailles.
he
made
ies at
suit,
They enjoyed each
Sorbonne and was ticketed
who had
one M. Premier,
Hopper was marry
To
she recalled
for marriage.
already proposed.
London. Years
A Frenchman was in purAs summer approached,
later she told
"in love with her"; he even "followed her to
his
mother Edward wrote only
he had to ask for money: I
may
to
not for Madrid, Holland,
Museum. His
his family,
had
.
.
.
Italy,
in
later
memory
[It]
I
I
at 55
of the
Gower
city
Street, not far
was not
"London deserves
its
bad name
has a sort of squat dingy strength to
to the
gay sparkle of Paris.
He did
It is
like
not paint: he rejected the
—
muddy The banks
"very swift and very
those over the Seine. cept
if
might as well see all I am here When he left Paris on June 27, it was
Germany. In London, he found lodging
or
Bloomsbury,
city."^''^ it
and Germany, even
in
from the
favorable. Writing to
he extended the series of comparisons across cultures that Paris
instigated:
gloom.
London and wanted
propose expanding their original
"I feel that since
not have another chance. "^'^'
one of the cheap hotels British
her daughter that
her."^^
project with travel to Madrid, England, Holland, Italy,
can as
how much
her laugh. At the age of twenty-one, she had just finished her stud-
the
Saies returned to her family in
to
company and
other's
where the 'embankments'
New
as regards it,
that
is
weather and
quite in contrast
York, essentially a commercial
Thames
as a subject, saying
the bridges also are higher
he found
and larger then
are lined with factories and ware houses ex-
are."^^
EDWARD HOPPER
10
/
Enid Sales.
Setting out to visit finer
museums, he judged
examples than the Louvre, also going
especially admired, the British terior
that the National Gallery
to the
Museum, and
other galleries.
as "the peoples "I
playground.
have discovered a well.
it)."^"
He
found the
in-
of Westminster Abbey "very interesting" and "tremendously English,"
but the Francophile missed the charm of Parisian
and
had
Wallace Collection, which he
You
see
I
little
"'''^
Paris
still
loomed
streets,
w^hich he referred to
large, especially
French restaurant on Soho Street where
could not forget the French cooking (there
What had brought Edward
direcdy to
is
French food: I
eat cheaply
nothing like
London was Enid. He took her
"dinner at an Italian restaurant in Soho,"^' and they
sat
to
together in her family's
garden while she embroidered a waistcoat for her French suitor and intended husband. Edward was helping her by biting off the threads, she recalled,
when
he suddenly recoiled and said he wasn't "going to do that for another man."''^
He
know that he loved her and wanted to marry her, as she told her daughter. He had the examples of his friends in Paris, Bruce and Graecen, with their newborn sons. Nothing came of it. He waited in London only until let
money
her
arrived from his parents on July i8, leaving the next day for Amster-
dam, about nine days
earlier than originally planned.
Hopper spent only four or five days. He visited Amsterdam and Haarlem, where his favorite teacher, Robert Henri, was conducting a In Holland,
Seductive Pans:
I
()o6- 1 goy
I
Ji
summer school for American students, among them Josephine Nivison, EHzabeth Fisher, Hartman R. Harris, Clara Perry, Louise Pope, and Helen Niles. Every Sunday, Henri took Hals
Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. Hopper saw Hals's paintings
in
town hall in Haarlem, but
seum
works by Rembrandt and
his students to look at
that impressed
past belief in
The
its
him
reality
—
was Rembrandt's Nightwatch
it
as "the it
most wonderful thing
in the
of his
almost amounts to deception.
I
in the
Rijksmu-
have seen,
it's
"^^
next stop was Berlin, where he arrived July 26 and stayed at Eich-
berg's Hotel
on Charlottenstrasse.
He commented
that the prosperity of the
countryside through which he had passed on the train from Holland re-
minded him of America: "Immense wheat fields, railroads and factories."^"* By the first of August, he was in Brussels, "a fine little city, but very much like everything is French, even the soldiers look so and as you know, Paris
—
French to
spoken almost altogether. The teutonic
is
He did
have been entirely extinguished."^^
and spent only two days
While
there,
in the
traits
not think
of the Flemish seem
much
of the
museum
Belgian capital, staying at the Monopole Hotel.
however, he seems to have had a good time, as he posed for a
photograph with two male friends.
Hopper days
later,
arrived back in Paris on
August
He
Madrid, but reconsidered and
sailed
illness.
home on
ther's health. Yet,
he also must have recognized that
America and begin
remained
—which
suggests that
to
make
his
mark
as
a
the Majestic from Cher-
sudden decision that was surely connected
21, a
this
to his father five
Hopper had planned
^^'
bourg on August
return to
wrote
hoping that he was "gaining strength daily"
Garret was suffering from a rather serious trip to
3.
was imperative
it
an
to his fa-
artist.
that he
How to go about
unclear. Abruptly he cut short the voyage of self-discovery that
had indelibly altered
his life
and
his art.
THE
mmm]
N:
1907-1910 EUROPE, WHICH HAD STRENGTHENED pelled
him
new heights of influence on his return, caused only confusion Edward Hopper's talent fell prey to conflicting claims, enticed by
to
in his pupil.
the
Robcrt Henri and pro-
newly discovered charms of Paris, yet beleaguered by the outcry back
in
New York for an American art. Among the strongest proponents of the value of native roots was Henri himself, whose
one of the original spurs
now
was, do as
I
say,
not as
own
successes in
Europe had been
Hopper's pilgrimage abroad. Henri's message
to
did.
I
To compound confusion, the economic outlook for a young artist in America in the autumn of 1907 was not auspicious. The previous spring the stock
market had plunged. Business
failures multiplied as the panic of 1907
revealed flaws in the currency and credit structure. Given the economic uncertainty,
known
no gallery or patron could be expected
painter.
arrived on the for the ideal to a
The
alternative
New York
of the free
was only too familiar
scene by
artist.
Now
way of commercial
if tardy,
desire for
art,
to scorn.
independence from
rather than
Hopper.
return to his parents
and
He had
only to outgrow
At
stake, too,
to live
sister in
it
world seemed
his family.
France and the Baptist mission. Hopper was determined
New York City,
to
chance on an un-
his very survival in the art
depend on the commercial work he had come growing,
to take a
was
Back from
on
his
own in From
Nyack.'
/
72
The Arrjifivu lent American: I goy- 1 gio and uncertainties of
the pressures
He
past.
wrote
thanking him
to his Paris
ment ahout her
Edward
We
New
York,
companion Enid
for his "lengthy
and interesting
mind Hed
his
Saies,
who
to the happier
rephed from
Enghmd
and confiding her de-
letter"
fiance, she reminisced fondly
ahout the confidences shared
in Paris:
decided, the day you said goodbye, do you remember, that
should like Monsieur Premier. days
1
months
8
suppose
ago.
made
I've
He
is
I
was quite
I,
hash pretty generally of
a
&
wiser
—
"gay student
well,
I
suppose
life" in Paris.
I'm telling you
all
I
& had
lived
with him for 6 & seems more. ... I
my
but I'm not
life,
good time during
a
But Oh! I'm miserable.
this. But you are the only one to
I
don't
whom
pretend that I'm gliding through a period of engaged
were good pals, weren't we?
If
I
I
in love
lo years older than
going back now, & perhaps for a "child of impulse & of passion" safer
7i
impending marriage. Expressing deep disappoint-
pression in the face of her
with
I
it's
my
know why I
need not
bliss
—& we
like to think that.^
Enid hoped that Edward would come
well enough. Years later his friend
to the rescue, she did not
Guy Pene du
Bois
know him
would remark
that
Hopper preferred "able dissection of the human species" to romance. Enid's letter did not stir Edward to action and her ensuing story was far from tragic. She eluded her monsieur, and in 1909 married a Swede named Nils Buhre,
moved to Malmo, and had four children. Her 1907 confidence elicited no response. Only in 1948 did Enid renew the correspondence, when she read of Hopper in Time: "I wonder if you can remember the very unsophisticated English girl you used to make fun of & take for excursions to Versailles etc.," she wrote. "You used to make me laugh a her
lot."^
letter,
so
I
many
for
monograph on
remember you Enid years.
from her that he not only answered his
him, response suggests Saies. ... It
his
Bryan.
special she
was good
to hear
warm
had been: "Of
from you
one personal link with Europe, Hopper faced
York. Simply to keep himself in the
found doing
work. The exceptionally
how
after
"^
Having broken
New
so pleased to hear
but sent her a
and lengthy, course
He was
illustrations
They were
to
city,
life in
he looked for work, which he
by the piece for an advertising agency, Sherman and
prove a mainstay for longer than he could hope or
For the agency in 1908 he designed the next season's ads for Brigham
fear.
Hop-
kins straw hats: modishly he aped the silhouettes and curvilinear forms of
contemporary Art Nouveau. Neither personally his
output makes no secret of the
distinctive nor innovative,
fact that his heart
had other designs.
EDWARD HOPPER In the midst of nostalgia
and
Hopper
financial necessity,
New
catching up with old friends from the sence, they
74
/
had been busy seeking avenues
York School of
lost
no time
Art. In his ab-
work, inspired by
for their
their
teacher Henri, out to circumvent not merely the general hard times but the
dominance of the conservative National Academy of Design. The ringleadArnold Friedman, Julius Golz, Jr., and Glenn Coleman, assembled a show of fifteen artists. Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Contemporary American Artists. They rented the top floor of a former club building at 43-45 West Forty-second Street from March 9 through 31, 1908. Besides the organizers, two of Hopper's friends gave a special hand: George Bellows worked to improve the decoration of the hall and Guy du ers,
Bois gave early proof of the gift for publicity and social connections that he
would use
unselfishly
and assiduously
lending "support to our faltering
Bois's
Hopper. Friedman recalled du
to aid
spirits
by interesting the newspaper-
men and other Bigwigs."^ As for Hopper, Friedman spoke of him only as "rereturned
cently
from Paris" and
participation.^ Since
work began on
"enthusiastic,"
but noted
this exhibition in the late
no
active
winter of 1906,
right after Hopper's departure for Europe, his inclusion after his return in the
amount of effective networking and suggests that his peers continued to hold him in esteem, as they had in school. The participants came from the circle of Henri's male students and com-
autumn of 1907
prised
some of
indicates a certain
the
most promising
artists
Friedman, Golz, Coleman, Bellows, du
of the next generation: besides
and Hopper, there were Rock-
Bois,
well Kent, Carl Sprinchorn, and seven more.^
As
a gesture against the
predominance of academic
art,
the
show by
stu-
dents of Henri took inspiration from the master himself. Henri had recently
achieved a controversial success against academic
"The
art:
— and Maurice Prendergast— which opened
Eight," as they
became known
the famous
show of
besides himself, they were John Sloan,
George Luks, Ernest Lawson, Everett Shinn, William Glackens, Arthur Davies,
450 Fifth Avenue,
and
notoriety,
on February
3, 1908.
The
at the
B.
Macbeth Gallery,
success of Henri, in both sales
was not duplicated by the younger group. The headline
in the
Evening Mail proclaimed "The Eight Out-Eighted." The reviewer meant no
compliment: "Having had 'The Eight', we quences."
He
singled out Bellows as "a
cated that most of these "youths,"
Henri, "belong to a future that
On March and
full
13,
is
now
have their direful conse-
coming man
all
right," but pontifi-
whose work he found too derivative of
never going to happen
at all."^
Sloan and Henri came to see the show:
"Good
lot
of stuff
of interest," Sloan remarked. "I'd like to be rich enough to buy some
of these things by Golz, Dresser, Keefe,
etc.
They would be
fine to
own,
so
The Ambivalent American: i goy- igio different
made
from the 'regular picture
a particular
mark, and
gave no evidence of
it
if
75
I
game'."'^
The
artists
he singled out never
he recognized any special talent in Hopper, he
at the time.
More than
decade would pass before
a
Sloan came to think highly of Hopper. As for Henri, Hopper recalled that his
my
old teacher "didn't like
Paris paintings.
say that the only excuse for a light painting
Hopper contributed
They were was
to
He
too light.
hang on
used to
a light wall."'"
three canvases done in Paris, using English
titles
The Louvre and Seine, The Bridge of the Arts, and The Parl^at St. Cloud. All employed a light palette and a freedom of brushstroke inspired by his encounter
with Impressionism.
He
showed,
too,
one of
his Paris caricatures in water-
Une Demi-mondaine. Besides Hopper, three of the fifteen artists ventured to exhibit French subjects in a show billed as "American": du Bois's
color,
Paris painting Gaite Montparnasse shared
Shinn had exhibited
a
month
earlier
and Harry Daugherty showed
portraits
employing the dark
Ignoring
this
subject with a painting that
with "The Eight." G. Leroy Williams
illustrations
The other artists mainly showed
its
from Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
New York and New York School of Art. the New York^ American trum-
scenes painted in and around
palette favored at the
marginal French contingent,
peted that the exhibition represented "one step nearer to a national
art."''
Hop-
per was not in step. His entries betrayed his allegiance to Paris in both content
and
style.
he was
When the show opened, seven months after his return from Europe,
still
dition of
full
of the experience of France and the late-nineteenth-century
French
art,
home and enough For the Steamer,
rest
The El
tra-
even though he desperately wanted to find acceptance
at
support to enable him to pursue a career as a painter.
of 1908 Hopper's paintings avoided French subjects: Tramp Station (based
on
his
memory
of the Ninth Avenue El at
Christopher Street), Railroad Train, and Tugboat with Blac/{
Smol{estacI{.
He
seemed to be following Henri's reiterated calls for "progress in our national art"
and "an appreciation of the great ideas native
to the
country and then the
achievement of a masterly freedom in expressing them."' In derived Tramp Steamer from his
memory
reality.
Hopper
of a British ship observed in the
English Channel. All the pictures share the theme of transportation and suggest preoccupation with getting away.
lustrating
Money
and
frugality
would
let
him
Hopper was biding his time until ilsave up enough to go back to Paris.
not spent in convivial evenings of drink and talk with other artists
could speed his departure.
He was more
keen on getting back
to
something
indefinable than on being one of the boys. Then, too, there was the
Henri,
who
still
took his
model of
summers abroad.
For the second journey, the
initiative
came from Edward. This time
there was no careful advance planning by Elizabeth Hopper, laying the
EDWARD HOPPER
groundwork
76
/
to
home away from home. Everyone
provide her son a
in the
family seems to have taken for granted that one could simply reappear on the
doorstep at 48 rue de Lille and pick up where things had
left
off nearly
two
On March 17, 1909, the R.M.S. Majestic arrived in Plymouth Edward Hopper. Via train from Cherbourg he proceeded directly on
years before.
bearing
He presented
to Paris.
himself in the rue de
he was forced to seek "an hotel
were not
as expected:
(Hotel
Malo)," he reported to his mother on
St.
Jammes
has been
and
ill
mained
set
bed for
in
torium on the outskirts of
had looked near the
university,
"'^
—
Suddenly having
he
where lodgings would be cheap. His heart
re-
on the rooms above the Baptist mission. By April
in his
to reinstall
Madame Jammes was
Courbevoie, a Parisian suburb, and looking consumption.'^
Hopper wrote
when he
2,
himself there. Familiarity was up-
mind; he had no thought of any possible
April 16 he reported that
quarter
in the latin
March 24, because "Madame some months today she left for a sanato fend for himself,
Paris.
wrote again, he had been able
permost
only to discover that things
Lille,
better;'^
risk of infection.
still
at the hospital
on April
On in
28, she died of
the next day, saying that he thought
Madame
but he was not certain. His
comment
would be buried sometime the day
after,
made years later to Enid Saies clarifies his concern for their old landlady: "Mme. Jammes was ill then and died while I was there. I went to her burial at Courbevoie."'^
To
his family in
Nyack, Hopper showed
little
emotion
at the
death of the
woman who had so mothered him and sheltered both him and Enid. He had to know her sons, too, yet his only expressed feeling was concern re-
come
garding the apartment: would the sons keep
room near here first
for
as
I
like this part
of May, although
some
it is
of the
city.
I
itP
am
If not, "I shall try to get a
hoping
to see
some
riots the
hardly possible as there has been no serious trouble
time."'^
The Jammes boys decided to keep the rooms above the mission until OcHopper could feel secure in his familiar base. He warmed up to the sur-
tober.
roundings, repeatedly praised "the splendid weather," wrote his father, "The
boulevards and parks are looking
fine,
Taking advantage of the season and
and the men are wearing straw his
proximity to the Seine and the
Louvre, he painted out-of-doors along the river almost every day. line
of least resistance. As a result his paintings differ
those of the previous trip:
Pont Royal. His
style
cally the contrast
dued
Le Pavilion de
hats."'^
little in
It
was the
theme from
Flore of the Louvre and, hard by,
did evolve to a degree: he utilized
much more
Le
dramati-
of light and shadow; he modified his palette into more sub-
tones, without the high-key pastels of his earlier canvases. Gradually he
freed himself from the impact of the Impressionists: his brushstrokes were no
longer as choppy.
The Ambivalent American: igoy-i^io Socially his
mother
Hopper was
rather busy during this second stay in Paris.
had run
that he
77
/
whom
into several "fellows"
He
told
knew from New
he
York, probably classmates such as Patrick Henry Bruce, Oliver N. Chaffee, or
Walter Pach,
living in Paris.'*^
still
he reported, "All Paris
is
decorated in
Rome
has recently been canonized in
d' Arc as she
honor of Jeanne
And
—
it
looks
Some occasion brought him to lunch at the home of a French famwhich he found awkward, given his inability to speak much French.^* Late in May, the "splendid weather" began to change. Years later Hop-
very fine."^^ ily,
per chose to forget the sunny spring and dwell on the negative.
Guy du
Bois,
who
could appreciate the point:
get used to Paris weather.
The low
"It
is
He
wrote to
hard for an American
clouds and the rain. 'Showers are
to
still
when I was there in summer. I work at his ease in the neighborturn to excursions. To his mother
probable' used to be the daily weather report
never got used
to
it."^^
hood of the rue de
No
Lille,
he reported again: "I
am
longer able to
he was forced to far
from
feeble.
I
went
to
Fontainebleau yesterday
with a friend of mine and had a very good time although then.
The Gorge de Franchard
itself."^^
in the forest
is
Elizabeth herself had been feeble, but
made
rained
it
very fine as
is
now and
also the forest
a recovery, as
Edward's
next letter shows:
Dear Mother, I
—
am glad to hear you are growing stout I had guessed as much you know it is comparatively easy to detect
from your handwriting
—
the writing of a fat lady.
hundred. In so
much
spite
I
hope however that you won't
rise
over two
of that you should be thankful that you are feeling
better.^^
His bent for caricature did not stop at his father and himself. After he announces a further excursion:
this sally,
am going to try to go to Chartres in a few
"I
days to see the cathedral supposed to be one of the finest in France."
Work
I
interrupted by weather,
Hopper began taking
stock and
making
he explained to his mother:
plans, as
suppose you want a I
letter
from
me
have been thinking of going
month,
as
I
want very much
not having had one
down
to
Madrid
to see the gallery there,
through Paris to England & Holland.
Of course
I
lately.
for about a
and return
should like to see
& Germany, but don't believe I will be able to, even as it is I may have to ask you for money in a month or two. You know of course Italy
that
I
do not want
well see
all
I
can as
to I
do
so,
may
but
I
feel that since
I
am
here
I
not have another chance. Should
might I
as
remain
EDWARD HOPPER in Paris I
/
would have ample enough
I
don't think
to last
me
until
^8
December, but
shall stay that long.
I
took your cousins to hear the music in the Tuileries a few
I
nights ago, and they seemed to enjoy agreeable, though
have met
I
very much.
however she has been very
closer acquaintance,
times
it
I
find
them very
suspect Helen might prove to be otherwise on a
I
nice to
me
the few
her. I
hope you are well and thriving.
Your son E. Hopper^^
New
Velazquez, Goya, and Manet had been favorites of his teachers
at the
York School. The
He had round; now
lesson
remained and prompted the
ideal itinerary.
glimpsed Germany, England, the Netherlands on the previous he would see the Prado, and he was well aware that
He
His mother's cousins had proved a diversion. ble,
aware of what
Money was days
to
do and where, interested
a delicate subject, the province
was the
Italy
classic tour.
sounds surprisingly socia-
in music, sensitive to nuance.
of his mother. With his father two
he took a different tack:
later,
G. H. Hopper.
Dear
Sir:
We are still having fine weather here and also many English and Americans although not
as
many Americans
as usual. It
is
said also
that they are not casting their coin about as freely as in former times,
and
that
A
many
shops are feeling the effects of it.
few nights ago
I
went
the Burns-Johnson fight
—
it
to see the pictures
looked as
(cinematograph) of
Burns didn't even have
if
a
"look in" from the start although he seemed as good a boxer but not so big or powerful.
On Monday on the Seine near surrounding
He
probably lacked "the punch."
of this week Paris.
Paris, as
I
There
it is
went is
to St.
Germain en Laye
a very fine
up on quite
a
a
town
view here of the country
hill.
A
high "Terrace" ex-
tends for a mile and a half along the river at a height of two or three
flanked by an absolutely straight line of enormous
hundred
feet,
trees. It's
very imposing. In the town there
which has
a
moat and contains the usual
is
also
an old Chateau
collection of antiques
or less interesting.
Give
my
regards to your wife and child.
Yours respectfully E. Hopper''
more
The Ambivalent American: I goj- 1 gio Jack Johnson had defeated the Canadian
The American
knockout, prompting
hope"
humhle
to
assumes that
a
racial tensions as
Negro and
Tommy
promoters searched for
new champion. Hopper
the
view of victory by
79
I
leaves
Burns
a "great
in a
white
unspoken the dominant
delivers a practiced estimate of the bout.
and follow
his father will be interested
He
which he ex-
his points,
presses in boxing jargon vividly set off by quotation marks, as if to say, this
not our language but the
way
Hopper
Boxing had been
punching bag
interest since the days of the
bonds.
they put
it.
in the attic,
one of their few male
had to explain to his father that by "the pictures," he meant
the cinema, a form of mass entertainment that spectable back
Nyack
in
Without missing
for those of the
a beat,
was not
yet considered re-
Hoppers' background and
Hopper switches
he gives a practiced estimate, this time
from
to
station.^^
one of his excursions. Again
a painter's point of view. In clear
language he sketches the layout and principal features of the place,
memory
to consolidate the
for himself as to
In the end the weather, rain "that
don," as
much
as
I
communicate
it
to
as
do not believe could be beaten
any lack of funds, put off further projects
much
someone
else.
Lon-
in
to paint or travel.
Hopper embarked July 31 on xheRyndam of the Holland-American riving in Hoboken August 9."^
Line, ar-
Vivid reminders of his roots awaited his return. Plans were under
Hudson-Fulton Celebration,
for the
is
mutual
a topic of
300 years since Henry
Hudson
sailed
jointly
up
commemorating
way
the passage of
the river and 102 years since Robert
Fulton's similar voyage by steamboat. Hopper's classmate Clarence K. Chatterton
had been commissioned
promoting
his
to design a
booklet and several posters
hometown of Newburgh. Hopper,
too,
produced
a black-
and-white poster design for the event (whether on commission or not clear).
Nyack held
its
own
parade with
floats that
landed
at the
Main
is
un-
Street
dock, where they were joined by local groups, including the Baptist Boys'
Brigade and neighboring
mounted
New
a
Hudson-Fulton
companies.^^
fire
exhibition,
The
Museum
Metropolitan
which focused on the Dutch
York and featured seventeenth-century Dutch
artists,
settlers
of
Rem-
notably
brandt, Hals, and Vermeer.^^
Ancestry was
made
the
all
very well, but even before his second trip
move from Nyack
and going back. Again returned to
Sherman
to
his only
New York. He had way
to
Hopper had
no intention of giving up
independence was
illustrating,
time, he threw himself into his painting with
France and
his
own renewed
In spite of the rain, the five
ment and planted
visions.
He
feel for his
months
set
in
same
his new new mem-
renewed ambition. In
canvases, he staked out fresh territory as he grappled with old and ories of
and he
and Bryan for advertising commissions. At the
American
roots.
France had reinforced
about painting from
memory
his attach-
the landscape
EDWARD HOPPER
/
he had sketched so precisely
80
His words had cap-
in the letter to his father/'
The
tured the view in language his father would understand.
"Terrace" in
France recalled the Palisades along the Hudson south of Nyack. Thinking back and beginning to paint Valley of the Seine, he uses a visual language that mingles memory of the place in France with recollection of other painters' visions.
He
had grown up with the
Hudson
the landscapes of the
Thomas
The Oxbow, had come
Cole's
Advertising
painting," the
museum
Room.^^ For Hopper Seine. In the
that
December
became
it
distance.
set close
on the
and out
to the
as interpreted in
Museum in
foil as
in the Accessions
he shaped Valley of the
a vast space, with the river
his eye
on
a highly detailed tree
the sinuous river.
Hopper
instead places him-
back from the picture plane and "up on quite a
from the
carries the eye across
left
and
viaduct for the railroad that curves
dim
in 1908.
pure landscape
the foreground of the picture, before sweeping across
left in
ture toward the
it
Oxbow
featured The
matrix and a
a
But Cole boldly fixed
panorama and
self at a distance
to see
masterpiece of the school,
Metropolitan
to the
manner of Cole, Hopper commands
winding in the
a traditional
A
"one of the most important productions
as
it
and learned
river
River School.
city.
The
out, but by
down
hill."
He,
too,
means of a gleaming white
the center of the valley and the pic-
arches and the city at the limits of sight suggest
French image of Italian landscape, stretching past some
dilapi-
dated and weedy aqueduct toward Rome. In complexity and scope Valley of the Seine represents a
Also
and
in 1909,
vastness,
new
departure for Hopper.
Hopper painted Le Bistro,
dark and
light in Paris:
foot of dark facades, a couple a bottle, while the eye
bend above
sits at
a
moves out and
a
dramatic evocation of intimacy
on the edge of shadow round
table,
center,
back
to the left, at the
immobile, with glasses and to
imaginary cypresses that
a preternaturally white bridge with arches stretching to the right.
Hopper remembers ness of a scene that
a possible intimacy is
on the margin,
monumental and
picturesque.
set against the bright-
He had
absorbed the
spring sunlight, but never saw such trees in walking out from the rue de In a third canvas of this period, tainly not
Hopper
shifts to
Lille.
imagine something cer-
drawn from spring mornings along the Seine. He creates a vignette Summer Interior. Again the eye moves
of erotic tension and loneliness indoors:
diagonally from the foreground across and back, taking in a
down
next to an
less blouse,
unmade bed on
woman
her head cast down, her right elbow supporting her body against
the bed, her
left
arm drooping
limp, the hand invisible between her thighs,
her bare leg touching a carpet of light from an unseen window. partial nudity, facelessness,
uality
flung
a trailing bedsheet: dressed only in a sleeve-
abandoned posture, and
visually
imply the disconsolate aftermath of an encounter
Formally the composition, with abrupt diagonals and
The
figure's
emphasized
in the
a tilted
sex-
demimonde.
green
floor, as
The Ambivalent American: igoj-igio
I
8i
Hopper had heen looking at Degas. further way in which the second Parisian
well as the intimate theme, suggests that
The trip
intensity of feeling reveals a
renewed and deepened Hopper's experience and
puritan values. All his
life,
he preferred to paint "from the
from memory or from posed models. But here,
with
his inner conflict fact,"
as in the other
whether
two canvases
The reComing after
of this autumn of 1909, he paints in a way without precedent for him. turn to Paris had provoked, not placated, his erotic sensibility.
and out of
his experience there,
Summer
toward works of
Interior looks
his
maturity: the loneliness of recurrent tense interiors, the sexual undercurrent,
and the perspective of the voyeur.
Summer
Besides Degas, the composition of
Hopper's growing interest
in
Interior also
contemporary French
shows signs of
illustration.
He
brought
back three issues o^ Les Maitres Humoristes, illustrated by Albert Guillaume
and Jean-Louis Forain,
as well as a
copy of L^ Sourire, a
From Guillaume, Hopper adapted an
illustration of a
on an embankment, using similar architecture, curb
humor magazine.
French couple seated
and grassy
slope,
but exaggerating the drinking of wine, including three empty bottles.
Hop-
per changed the
humor, more
Not
mood
in line
as well, conveying
stones,
melancholy rather than ironic
with Anglo-Saxon puritanism than Latin freedom.
network afford Hopper another
until early 1910 did the old school
opportunity to show. Unlike two years before, he
now appeared
not only with
Henri's legions but with the leader himself. Henri and Sloan were chief organizers of the "Exhibition of Independent Artists,"
from April
i
through 27
in galleries
among the
which took place
improvised in a vacant commercial
The dates overlapped with the anAcademy of Design and called its authority into question. Each artist could enter one work for ten dollars, two for eighteen. Frugal as ever. Hopper spent for only one, Le Louvre et la Seine. No warehouse on West Thirty-fifth
Street.
nual spring exhibition at the National
doubt the
fee
was
a factor,
and possibly
also his dissatisfaction with the results
of his recent experiments, or sensitivity about his French themes in the face of Henri's American bent. Hopper did not
among
the 344 entries, although the
tireless
Guy du
Eager
to
sell
and no
critic
singled
show commanded many
Bois both took part and reviewed for the
emphasize the public impact of the
initiative,
him out
reviews.
The
New Yorl{ American.
he reported that more
than two thousand people showed up for opening night, so that the "promoters find
it
necessary to adopt police regulations for handling crowd*
Once again on
the margins, outside the fanfare.
French aesthetic and lived by commercial to
fit in.
He produced
illustrations.
Hopper nursed
He did
1910.
As
not
his
know how
advertisements for the "Wearing Apparel, Textile and
Fashion Show," a national trade exhibition that took place
March
"3^
in
Chicago
in
the symbol for the show, he designed an Atlas-like figure
EDWARD HOPPER
/
82
stooped under the weight of the show's name. Atlas provides an apt metaphor for
Hopper's
own
sense of the burden he
tinued to scrimp and
summer
dream of
loomed
before,
escape.
obligatory work.
felt in his
The
mind, though even
in his
He
con-
ideal itinerary, rained out the
than the year before
less
made a careful plan to carry it out. Ever present was the enthusiasm of Henri, who spent the summers of 1906, 1908, and 1910 in does he seem to have
Spain and painted the
common
people and especially their heroes, the fight-
ers of bulls.^'*
Hopper's move does not have the
summer expedition. As soon as he had saved the minimum, he embarked. On May 11, 1910, he arrived in Plymouth aboard the R.M.S. Adriatic, and made a beeline for Paris. For the first time he knew he was on his own, and could not expect to find the homelike setting securely linked with Nyack. The experience of the previous air
of a regular
him to look in the Latin Quarter for lodgings he could afford. name that reflected the place: Hotel des Ecoles, 15 rue Delambre. He looked up the Jammes boys, and the younger informed him that the elder had entered the army and was stationed near what Hopper translated as "the German frontier." That was all he bothered to relate to his mother. Years later, he filled in more for Enid Saies: "I have often wondered if the sons [of Mme. Jammes] survived the first World War. Casimir was year had taught
He
settled
doing
on
a
his service in the cavalry the last
he did not want to be
—he was
I
heard of him and that
afraid of horses
just
where
—and he must have had
plenty
is
ofthem."'^
Toward year's in
May
Paris
the end of his stay the year before,
worth of work
still
to be
done
Hopper had written of a
1910 he tarried in Paris only a
week
or
so.
He
on the 26th of May and spent 28 hours on the
staying at a very
good pension
ambitious
in Paris, besides
in the centre
of the
through the Pyrenees and the north of Spain
is
To
told his mother: "I left
train to
city.
The
trip
on the
is
quite
with exception of the means for transportation.
The trams
and ox and mule
carts
drawing
alert to landscape,
he reported that "the country roundabout the
fine
—
there
a big
is
west of which
I
seem
to be the thing for
—
train
have
I
"^^
he described Madrid: "Not very large but
his father
Madrid and am
very remarkable
never seen such wonderful clear views and sunshine.
modern
are very slow
Ever
freight."^' city
is
I
his sister
went
have forgotten the name
—they look good without
he reserved his longest and most vivid
Sunday and found
to a bull fight last
thought
it
would
very
range of snow-capped mountains toward the north-
name, however."^^ For
half
travel. In fact
be.
The
it
letter:
much worse
killing of the horses by the bull
is
than
I
very hor-
the
The Ambivalent American: I goj- 1 gio
much more
rible,
up
so as they have
to the bull to be butchered.
sport,
no chance not
It is
to escape
what
I
would
8^
and are ridden call
an exciting
merely brutal and horrible sickening.
The surprise I
/
entry of the bull into the ring however
and the very
Toledo
to
and wandered about under
came back
very beautiful, his
charges he makes are very pretty.
first
have also been out
is
—
a
,
a very hot
most wonderful old town,
sun for
a
day
after
which
I
to Madrid.^*^
The bull's entry was the only part that later, perhaps in deference to both Goya and Manet, he made the subject of an etching. Nothing else from his trip to Spain made its way into his art. He would not ape Henri. His eye and heart were already engaged.
For Spain,
after
all,
eleven days sufficed. Originally he had justified ven-
turing Spain by invoking the Prado to his mother the gallery there"^*'
—but no museums
—
"I
want very much
figure in the extant letters.
to see
By June
lo
he was back in Paris. Before leaving he had booked a hotel inhabited by Miss Cuniffe, his fellow former resident with
on July
scarcely three weeks:
the Cincinnati of the
i
he sailed from Cherbourg for
Hamburg- American
ocean had been the shortest, ceived and least lucky.
line.
The
than two months
less
Not even
Mme. Jammes. He remained
the truncated
all told,
new
New
York on
third venture across the
the least well con-
itinerary
had broken new
ground. Whatever Hopper had hoped to recapture or acquire did not materialize.
He would
no need
feel
to
pursue the
rest
of his ideal tour.
He had
exorcised the lure of European success, the treacherous example of Henri
and he never
tried
If the literal
Europe again.
yearning had been quenched, the original impact endured.
Hopper wrote in the space labeled "where "New York City and in Europe."^' On he sounded more ambivalent: "The life over there is entirely
More than two decades
later.
studied" on an exhibition entry form:
another occasion different
from the
life
here. In
Europe
And, with the exception of Spain, the seemed awfully
ordered; here
light there
is
different.
it is
disordered.
Those countries
we have here."^"^ In the end he admitcrude and raw here when I got back. It took me ten
don't have the clear skies and sunlight ted: "It
life is
years to get over Europe.'"*^
SEARCH OF \ STYLE: 1911-191S
IN
SUDDENLY HOME AGAIN solved nothing.
ken, the
He
ever.
spell.
At most
in the
At twenty-eight,
French themes and
settle
down
in his
were a
new
as acute as
attraction
of the expatriate Whistler, and yet aware of the challenge
launched by the apostles of truly American
galleries
of 1910, Hopper had re-
Europe had tarnished, not bro-
his reasons for inner conflict
vacillated, feeling nostalgia for
to the style
summcr
his hasty third trip to
to a distinctive style
Unable
to sort himself out
and
of his own, he could hardly hope to persuade
and buyers. Nor was he any
emotional
art.
closer to decisiveness
and
settling
down
life.
He took a practical initiative, finding a studio at 53 East Fifty-ninth Street, not far from the brownstone of Robert Henri. Here he would at least have
more than free of the
the inadequate space he
annoyance of being accosted by the streetwalkers
there. In the absence of
dependence continued
any outlet for
to press.
a
low
point.
may have been would top
1,
he
"Salesman" would
and the burden upon the
his paintings, the
Street,
and be
who swarmed
need for financial
in-
Momentarily he despaired of his dream.
In the city directory for 191
was
had suffered on Fourteenth
listed his profession as "salesman."' It
satirize the function
of commercial art
drum up business by selling his skill. It made at his own expense; quite in character, it
artist to
a bitter joke
the long line of caricatures of himself
Hopper was reduced again
In Search of a Style: igi i-igi§ to
/
canvassing offices and peddling his
under your arm,
portfolio
"You had
skill.
meaning," recalled James Ormsbee Chapin, another
Hopper himself spoke frankly of his times
walk around the block
\\\
money and
the job for
He
lousy thing. "^
I
was forced
into
it
Besides the advertising agencies,
tried to force
1,
to hell
an effort to
in
myself to have some interest
all.
real."^
the end of 191
artist
couple of times before
That's
I
and
illustrator."^
go
I'd
in,
"Some-
wanting
wouldn't get the
I
in
make some money. But
it.
it
wasn't very
Hopper sought out magazines. By
he was illustrating for Everybody's, a magazine active
in the
muckraking movement, then edited by Trumbull White. Hopper's work, of
in black
it
young
and white, consisted
at first
all
of line drawings for stories about
boys.
The
business of earning
from
vive
a
never tired of reiterating his antipathy: "Illustration didn't
me.
really interest
a
with
was hard and de-
It
reluctance and embarrassment:
same time hoping
at the
to sell yourself,
Edward Hopper.
just like