Edward Hopper

American artist

The American artist Edward Hopper is widely acknowledged as the most important realist painter of twentieth-century America.
Hopper's work demonstrates that realism is not a literal or photographic copy of what we see, but an interpretive rendering. Merely all his paintings are imbued with a sense of loneliness. Many admire his work for its composition, form and light.

Art school

Edward Hopper was born on 22 July 1882 in Nyack, New York. He attended a local private school and graduated from Nyack High School. In 1899 he visited a commercial art school in New York City and commenced his art study at the New York School of Art in 1900.

Europe

After his study Edward worked as an illustrator by C.C. Phillips & Company for a year. In 1907 Hopper visited Europe for the first time. He traveled through France, England, Holland, Germany and Belgium. After his return to the United States he worked as a commercial artist in New York. During the next years he made another two trips to Europe. Later Hopper admitted: "it took me ten years to get over Europe".

Smash the Hun

During an exhibition in New York in 1913 his first painting was sold. Later that year Hopper moved to 3 Washington Square North, New York, where he lived until his death.
In October 1918 Hopper's poster "Smash the Hun" won the first prize in the nationwide competition of the National Service Section of the United States Shipboard Emergency Fleet Corporation. The turning point in his carrier occurred in 1920, when he had his first one-man show at the Whitney Studio Club.

Attracted by architecture

Hopper married Josephine Verstille Nivison on July 9, 1924 at the Eglise Evangélique on West Sixteenth Street, New York. Guy Pène du Bois was his best man.
Over the years Hopper had left New York City during the summer. In 1933 he purchased land in South Truro. Later, he built a studio house on this land.
Hopper was attracted by architecture and painted both exterior and interior views of buildings. Often he focussed on specific architectural details as rooftops and stairways. When people are presented in his paintings they are exposed as silent witness.

Venice Biennale

In 1952 Hopper was chosen by the American Federation of Arts as one of the four artists to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale.
Hopper finished his last painting "Two Comedians" in 1965. On 15 May 1967 Edward Hopper died in his studio at Washington Square North.
Although his work was outside the mainstream, his simplified style was one of the influences on the later representational revival and on pop art.