Edward HOPPER (1882-1967)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : USA US painting < 1940 Groups
Chronology : 1920-1929 1928 1929 1934 1939 1945 1946
See also : USA US painting < 1940 Groups
Chronology : 1920-1929 1928 1929 1934 1939 1945 1946
masterpiece
1925 House by the Railroad
MoMA
Painted in 1925 by Edward Hopper, House by the railroad features an outdated Victorian mansion confronted with a surrounding which is void of any living being. Despite the breakthrough of his new style to express a lonely mood, the artist preferred puzzling his followers by stating that he "was more interested in the sunlight on the buildings and on the figures than any symbolism".
1928 Blackwell's Island
2013 SOLD for $ 19M by Christie's
Hopper does not want to be blinded by the foils of America, but he loves his country and New York. In reaction against his time, he developed a passion for anonymous houses in front of which he goes his way by road, rail or river. He does not know whether they are used or abandoned, but their menace of ruins are the symbol of the past that he does not wish to leave.
Blackwell's Island, oil on canvas 88 x 151 cm painted in 1928, was sold for $ 19M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Christie's on May 23, 2013. It is a very good example showing the independence of Hopper against any art trend.
Blackwell's is part of Manhattan, but this district without skyscrapers chosen by Hopper to symbolize New York was known for its prison and penitentiary hospital. Always in search of the past, the artist pretends to ignore that its name was Welfare Island since 1921 (to become Roosevelt Island later).
On East River shore, buildings align with factory chimneys. A small motor boat, single direct example of a human activity, is almost out of field going to a future that does not concern us.
This is a very geometric composition with sharp colors. The sky is crossed by radiant tracks. All front sides of the buildings shine under the sun excepted one of them. The river is too blue, voluntarily, to capture all the attention. This landscape is not classical and is the opposite of impressionism. It is not far from surrealism. It is a Hopper.
Blackwell's Island, oil on canvas 88 x 151 cm painted in 1928, was sold for $ 19M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Christie's on May 23, 2013. It is a very good example showing the independence of Hopper against any art trend.
Blackwell's is part of Manhattan, but this district without skyscrapers chosen by Hopper to symbolize New York was known for its prison and penitentiary hospital. Always in search of the past, the artist pretends to ignore that its name was Welfare Island since 1921 (to become Roosevelt Island later).
On East River shore, buildings align with factory chimneys. A small motor boat, single direct example of a human activity, is almost out of field going to a future that does not concern us.
This is a very geometric composition with sharp colors. The sky is crossed by radiant tracks. All front sides of the buildings shine under the sun excepted one of them. The river is too blue, voluntarily, to capture all the attention. This landscape is not classical and is the opposite of impressionism. It is not far from surrealism. It is a Hopper.
1928 Cape Ann Granite
2018 SOLD for $ 8.4M by Christie's
Edward and Jo Hopper used to spend their summer time in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a city in Cape Ann. Edward used to take views of the city and surrounding countryside in watercolor on the spot before copying some of them in oil. The city and its harbor had a significant artistic history including FitzHenry Lane and Winslow Homer.
Cape Ann granite, oil on canvas 71 x 102 cm painted by Edward in 1928, was sold for $ 8.4M from a lower estimate of $ 6M by Christie's on May 9, 2018, lot 408. This sunny landscape of boulders with long shadows does not include man made structures.
The 1928 season was the last holidays of Edward and Jo in Gloucester. In 1930 they are dazzled by the soft landscape of sandy hills of South Truro above Cape Cod bay. The small village matched Edward's mood for isolation. The couple will return every summer for the rest of their lives to their little paradise on earth.
Cape Ann granite, oil on canvas 71 x 102 cm painted by Edward in 1928, was sold for $ 8.4M from a lower estimate of $ 6M by Christie's on May 9, 2018, lot 408. This sunny landscape of boulders with long shadows does not include man made structures.
The 1928 season was the last holidays of Edward and Jo in Gloucester. In 1930 they are dazzled by the soft landscape of sandy hills of South Truro above Cape Cod bay. The small village matched Edward's mood for isolation. The couple will return every summer for the rest of their lives to their little paradise on earth.
1929 Chop Suey
2018 SOLD for $ 92M by Christie's
Very francophile after a stay in Paris, Edward Hopper observes on his return to New York the differences in the art of living between the two continents. Everything is changing very quickly in the United States in the 1920s around a new organization of work that better incorporates women, respects their individuality better and gives them some freedom.
Hopper is taciturn and traditionalist. He very well appreciates that he cannot oppose these changes, just as he cannot do anything about the collapse of abandoned houses. His art is realistic but he builds his own universe like a surrealist.
Automat, painted in 1927, is a portrait of his wife Jo having a break in a self-service cafe. She is alone, pensive and a little tired, sitting in front of a round table in the back of a room without decoration.
Chop Suey, oil on canvas 81 x 96 cm painted in 1929, stages the same young woman in another cheap restaurant, seated in front of another woman who is seen from behind. Sitting at another table in the background, a couple chats.
The theme is definitely not narrative despite its appearances. We will not know who these characters are, why they are together. These Chinese cafes that then proliferate in the United States are a symbol of a new everyday life with new forms of banalities and also with the attractiveness and the threat of internationalization and depersonalization.
In new urban spaces, geometry becomes omnipresent. Chop Suey seduced the young Mark Rothko and much later influenced his division of surfaces into color fields.
Chop Suey was sold for $ 92M from a lower estimate of $ 70M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 12 B. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Hopper is taciturn and traditionalist. He very well appreciates that he cannot oppose these changes, just as he cannot do anything about the collapse of abandoned houses. His art is realistic but he builds his own universe like a surrealist.
Automat, painted in 1927, is a portrait of his wife Jo having a break in a self-service cafe. She is alone, pensive and a little tired, sitting in front of a round table in the back of a room without decoration.
Chop Suey, oil on canvas 81 x 96 cm painted in 1929, stages the same young woman in another cheap restaurant, seated in front of another woman who is seen from behind. Sitting at another table in the background, a couple chats.
The theme is definitely not narrative despite its appearances. We will not know who these characters are, why they are together. These Chinese cafes that then proliferate in the United States are a symbol of a new everyday life with new forms of banalities and also with the attractiveness and the threat of internationalization and depersonalization.
In new urban spaces, geometry becomes omnipresent. Chop Suey seduced the young Mark Rothko and much later influenced his division of surfaces into color fields.
Chop Suey was sold for $ 92M from a lower estimate of $ 70M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 12 B. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1934 East Wind over Weehawken
2013 SOLD for $ 40.5 M$ by Christie's
The house is for Hopper the theme that ensures the continuity of civilization. It symbolizes the past by surviving after the move or death of its residents. The 1929 crisis could only exacerbate his reluctant vision of the modern world.
Hopper is the most famous car user in the history of art. He tirelessly revisits the same places to perform sketches which he then reworks in his workshop in the form of large oil paintings.
Painted in 1934, East Wind over Weehawken, 86 x 128 cm, shows houses viewed from a small crossing of streets in suburban New Jersey. This place should support life but the streets are empty. These houses are promoted to the rank of major characters in the drama and wait for who knows what.
In the foreground, a tall unsightly city lamp divides the picture as if it were the keeper of nothingness. Seeking other marks, we see a sign at the limit of readability announcing For Sale. The moment before or after can reveal life. Two very small spots on far left edge are characters. Or not. Mankind does not matter.
This painting was sold for $ 40.5M from a lower estimate of $ 22M, for sale by Christie 'son December 5, 2013.
Hopper is the most famous car user in the history of art. He tirelessly revisits the same places to perform sketches which he then reworks in his workshop in the form of large oil paintings.
Painted in 1934, East Wind over Weehawken, 86 x 128 cm, shows houses viewed from a small crossing of streets in suburban New Jersey. This place should support life but the streets are empty. These houses are promoted to the rank of major characters in the drama and wait for who knows what.
In the foreground, a tall unsightly city lamp divides the picture as if it were the keeper of nothingness. Seeking other marks, we see a sign at the limit of readability announcing For Sale. The moment before or after can reveal life. Two very small spots on far left edge are characters. Or not. Mankind does not matter.
This painting was sold for $ 40.5M from a lower estimate of $ 22M, for sale by Christie 'son December 5, 2013.
1939 Bridle Path
2012 SOLD for $ 10.4M by Sotheby's
Edward Hopper was a misanthropist who expressed in his art what words could not say. He was however a keen observer of the society of his time, whose developments he did not necessarily approve : he preferred the artificial world of the theater. He was looking for inspiration around him, in New York City and on the road to his summer residence at Cape Cod.
His characters are frozen in their psychological solitude, even when they are in a group. Their attitude is bored, often without any movement. Bridle Path, oil on canvas 59 x 107 cm painted in 1939, is an exception, and also a very rare example of surrealism at that time in his work.
The scene shows three riders in full action, on a wide path that leads straight to a dark tunnel. The place is recognizable : we see in the background the Dakota building, recognizable by its incongruous neo-Renaissance architecture on the edge of Central Park.
The artist plays on a confusion between bridle (the rein) and bridal (relating to the bride). The three riders are not on the same level. The man and one of the women are almost in the entrance to the tunnel, somehow a hole to hell. The man, most certainly a self-portrait, reacts to the imminent danger by pulling on the bridle, which rears up his beautiful white horse.
For once, Jo Hopper's notebooks do not help to decode although she indicates her enthusiasm for this work. The theme of the danger of marriage was perhaps still sensitive in this atypical couple. The gallop of the two women towards hell and the ultimate attempt of the man to escape it are undoubtedly also a reference to the anxiogenic international events of April 1939.
Bridle Path was sold for $ 10.4M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2012 from a lower estimate of $ 5M, lot 10.
His characters are frozen in their psychological solitude, even when they are in a group. Their attitude is bored, often without any movement. Bridle Path, oil on canvas 59 x 107 cm painted in 1939, is an exception, and also a very rare example of surrealism at that time in his work.
The scene shows three riders in full action, on a wide path that leads straight to a dark tunnel. The place is recognizable : we see in the background the Dakota building, recognizable by its incongruous neo-Renaissance architecture on the edge of Central Park.
The artist plays on a confusion between bridle (the rein) and bridal (relating to the bride). The three riders are not on the same level. The man and one of the women are almost in the entrance to the tunnel, somehow a hole to hell. The man, most certainly a self-portrait, reacts to the imminent danger by pulling on the bridle, which rears up his beautiful white horse.
For once, Jo Hopper's notebooks do not help to decode although she indicates her enthusiasm for this work. The theme of the danger of marriage was perhaps still sensitive in this atypical couple. The gallop of the two women towards hell and the ultimate attempt of the man to escape it are undoubtedly also a reference to the anxiogenic international events of April 1939.
Bridle Path was sold for $ 10.4M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2012 from a lower estimate of $ 5M, lot 10.
masterpiece
1942 Nighthawks
Art Institute of Chicgo
1945 Two Puritans
2021 SOLD for $ 11.6M by Christie's
The world is changing too fast. Peggy Guggenheim is introducing in New York the European modern art. The art critic Guy Pène du Bois applauds his friend Edward Hopper as the guarantor of tradition. According to Pène du Bois, Hopper "turned the Puritan in him into a purist, turned moral rigors into stylistic precisions".
Edward and Jo are married since 1924. They live in New York but since 1930 they spend half the year in Cape Cod. Edward does not like the paintings made by Jo but she plays a valuable role by commenting in her notebook the symptoms of the creativity of her surprising and hermetic husband.
Edward does not paint much in 1945 but he is flattered by the opinion of Pène du Bois and takes his pencils again. Like the ancient travelers, he uses to paint in his studio from drawings made on the field.
On November 11, 2021, Christie's sold for $ 11.6M an oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm resulting from this new creative fervor, lot 39C. It features two small houses side by side and separated from a grassy alley by a unique white fence. They are of the same pattern except that the nearest has an additional floor. The immaculate white walls and fence express the purity.
The artist titled this work Two Puritans, in a direct link with the statement by Pène du Bois. Jo notes that only one house had served as a model for both. There is no doubt that the two houses symbolize the weightier Edward and his petite wife although Jo's notebooks do not reveal Edward's intimate intentions. The windows are lit like in a wink. The intimacy of the couple is preserved by the absence of doorknobs and of opening in the fence. The alley and trees are the dirty external world.
On November 28, 2012, Christie's sold for $ 9.6M a painting made in the following year, showing a house flanked by a barn in the countryside, titled October on Cape Cod. The house is the same as the "Jo" house of the Puritans.
Edward and Jo are married since 1924. They live in New York but since 1930 they spend half the year in Cape Cod. Edward does not like the paintings made by Jo but she plays a valuable role by commenting in her notebook the symptoms of the creativity of her surprising and hermetic husband.
Edward does not paint much in 1945 but he is flattered by the opinion of Pène du Bois and takes his pencils again. Like the ancient travelers, he uses to paint in his studio from drawings made on the field.
On November 11, 2021, Christie's sold for $ 11.6M an oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm resulting from this new creative fervor, lot 39C. It features two small houses side by side and separated from a grassy alley by a unique white fence. They are of the same pattern except that the nearest has an additional floor. The immaculate white walls and fence express the purity.
The artist titled this work Two Puritans, in a direct link with the statement by Pène du Bois. Jo notes that only one house had served as a model for both. There is no doubt that the two houses symbolize the weightier Edward and his petite wife although Jo's notebooks do not reveal Edward's intimate intentions. The windows are lit like in a wink. The intimacy of the couple is preserved by the absence of doorknobs and of opening in the fence. The alley and trees are the dirty external world.
On November 28, 2012, Christie's sold for $ 9.6M a painting made in the following year, showing a house flanked by a barn in the countryside, titled October on Cape Cod. The house is the same as the "Jo" house of the Puritans.
1946 October on Cape Cod
2012 SOLD for $ 9.6M by Christie's
Edward Hopper observes the civilization of his time. He sees people, and the traces left by people. The characters rarely communicate. When they do it, we do not understand why.
Unidentified people have built houses and roads. Hopper passes the houses in his car. They have no history and willnever have.
Hopper is both an artist and an American. He has a studio in New York and a summer home in Cape Cod. The road is long, and he stops to draw sketches of trivial houses which he will later use to compose his oil paintings. Not too many: one or two per year. This is enough to exacerbate his sense of a ridiculous American civilization.
On November 28, 2012, Christie's sold for $ 9.6M October on Cape Cod, oil on canvas 67 x 107 cm painted in 1946.
October is recognizable by the autumn sky. Cape Cod is not. The season is over with no longer interest to the large villas of the high society. Hopper shows a meadow at the edge of the road with a little white house, geometric as in a child drawing, with a small barn of the same shape. Like mother and cub.
Jo Hopper had noted the stops on the road to prepare the sketches, but this comment can only apply to the landscape behind because the house is the same as the smaller house of The Puritans, supposed to be a metaphor for herself.
This house and its barn are like a mother protecting her cub. Edward and Jo had no children. Who is the barn ?
This is the great paradox of Hopper to share his doubts about modern civilization with a simple scenery empty of characters and an outsider title.
Unidentified people have built houses and roads. Hopper passes the houses in his car. They have no history and willnever have.
Hopper is both an artist and an American. He has a studio in New York and a summer home in Cape Cod. The road is long, and he stops to draw sketches of trivial houses which he will later use to compose his oil paintings. Not too many: one or two per year. This is enough to exacerbate his sense of a ridiculous American civilization.
On November 28, 2012, Christie's sold for $ 9.6M October on Cape Cod, oil on canvas 67 x 107 cm painted in 1946.
October is recognizable by the autumn sky. Cape Cod is not. The season is over with no longer interest to the large villas of the high society. Hopper shows a meadow at the edge of the road with a little white house, geometric as in a child drawing, with a small barn of the same shape. Like mother and cub.
Jo Hopper had noted the stops on the road to prepare the sketches, but this comment can only apply to the landscape behind because the house is the same as the smaller house of The Puritans, supposed to be a metaphor for herself.
This house and its barn are like a mother protecting her cub. Edward and Jo had no children. Who is the barn ?
This is the great paradox of Hopper to share his doubts about modern civilization with a simple scenery empty of characters and an outsider title.
1955 Hotel Window
2006 SOLD for $ 27M by Sotheby's
Edward Hopper is a director of the world around him. He is shy, laconic and conservative. His marriage to Jo, who is sociable, open and liberal, will last their lifetime. The notebooks scrupulously kept by Jo are often the only entry to understand Edward's creativity.
Jo becomes Edward's only model, which avoids jealousy, but he positions her against her own temperament. She lets go, and becomes the symbol of the loneliness felt by the artist. In 1942 in Nighthawks, Edward and Jo are the diners in the deserted restaurant. This famous painting is a great example of the atmosphere of a thriller in major art.
Edward carefully observes his surroundings : the hotels, restaurants and theaters of New York City, the road to Cape Cod and the gas stations. He takes sketches before making his paintings in his workshop. Often the realization, as in Nighthawks and Hotel Window, goes beyond his original intention in the gloomy.
Hotel Window, oil on canvas 102 x 140 cm, was painted in 1955. In the lobby of a hotel, a gray-haired woman absent-mindedly looks through the window at night. The room is poorly furnished and no one will disturb this old woman who has the same hard facial features as the Jo from Nighthawks, but 13 years older.
Hotel Window was sold for $ 27M by Sotheby's on November 29, 2006 from a lower estimate of $ 10M.
Jo becomes Edward's only model, which avoids jealousy, but he positions her against her own temperament. She lets go, and becomes the symbol of the loneliness felt by the artist. In 1942 in Nighthawks, Edward and Jo are the diners in the deserted restaurant. This famous painting is a great example of the atmosphere of a thriller in major art.
Edward carefully observes his surroundings : the hotels, restaurants and theaters of New York City, the road to Cape Cod and the gas stations. He takes sketches before making his paintings in his workshop. Often the realization, as in Nighthawks and Hotel Window, goes beyond his original intention in the gloomy.
Hotel Window, oil on canvas 102 x 140 cm, was painted in 1955. In the lobby of a hotel, a gray-haired woman absent-mindedly looks through the window at night. The room is poorly furnished and no one will disturb this old woman who has the same hard facial features as the Jo from Nighthawks, but 13 years older.
Hotel Window was sold for $ 27M by Sotheby's on November 29, 2006 from a lower estimate of $ 10M.
1965 Chair Car
2005 SOLD for $ 14M by Christie's
Painted in 1965, Chair Car represents the ultimate questioning by Edward Hopper of the position of ordinary people in modern life. They remain alone in their mind while physically in a group, like the characters in Giacometti's La Place.
The chair car is a Pullman wagon specially furnished with rotating chairs for extending the comfort in long travels. Of course lonesome travelers share their time without knowing each other. Nevertheless a woman turns her seat and head to glance at another woman who reads a magazine and does not care at her.
The external world is not visible. The wagon is a closed stage that may remind the existentialist Huis Clos play by Sartre. The colors are not expressive despite a bright sunlight through the windows.
This oil on canvas 102 x 165 cm was sold for $ 14M by Christie's on May 11, 2005, lot 34. It is the last but one painting by the artist, the year before his farewell in Two Comedians.
The chair car is a Pullman wagon specially furnished with rotating chairs for extending the comfort in long travels. Of course lonesome travelers share their time without knowing each other. Nevertheless a woman turns her seat and head to glance at another woman who reads a magazine and does not care at her.
The external world is not visible. The wagon is a closed stage that may remind the existentialist Huis Clos play by Sartre. The colors are not expressive despite a bright sunlight through the windows.
This oil on canvas 102 x 165 cm was sold for $ 14M by Christie's on May 11, 2005, lot 34. It is the last but one painting by the artist, the year before his farewell in Two Comedians.
1966 Two Comedians
2018 SOLD for $ 12.5M by Sotheby's
Edward Hopper was passionate about theater and cinema. The roles played by the actors brought him the human relations which he struggled to express in real life. Jo, married in 1924, was his unique muse and the manager of his work. It was difficult for them to live together as their temperaments were so different, but they succeeded.
In 1966 Edward revisits these two themes in a self-portrait with Jo. On a large empty stage, they make their final bow while holding their hands each other. Death was coming : Edward left in 1967 and Jo in 1968.
They have white clothes like Pierrot and Pierrette, the melancholic clown and his muse from the Commedia dell'Arte. The long cloth fits Edward's tall figure. Faces are wrinkled and made up. He is wearing the hat of Watteau's Pierrot.
This oil on canvas 74 x 102 cm is a poignant tribute to theater and the last fantasy of this austere illustrator of life. It has long belonged to Sinatra. It was sold for $ 12.5M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2018, lot 15.
In 1966 Edward revisits these two themes in a self-portrait with Jo. On a large empty stage, they make their final bow while holding their hands each other. Death was coming : Edward left in 1967 and Jo in 1968.
They have white clothes like Pierrot and Pierrette, the melancholic clown and his muse from the Commedia dell'Arte. The long cloth fits Edward's tall figure. Faces are wrinkled and made up. He is wearing the hat of Watteau's Pierrot.
This oil on canvas 74 x 102 cm is a poignant tribute to theater and the last fantasy of this austere illustrator of life. It has long belonged to Sinatra. It was sold for $ 12.5M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2018, lot 15.
