Edward Hopper Painted "Nighthawks" While New York Braced for Bombs
Edward Hopper's Iconic Painting, "Nighthawks
Edward Hopper began Nighthawks in late 1941, sketching coffee urns at a Midtown diner and modeling the suited men himself in a mirror while his wife Jo posed as the auburn-haired woman. As Pearl Harbor plunged America into war and blackouts darkened New York, Hopper worked with obsessive focus, finishing in about six weeks. The painting's glowing diner, likely stitched together from several Greenwich Avenue establishments, became a quiet act of endurance against the darkness.
The loneliness thing is overdone. It formulates something you don't want formulated.
- chasil
This painting is in the Chicago Art Institute.
The two other iconic paintings in their collection are:
-Grant Wood's American Gothic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic
-George Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Isla...
All of these paintings were purchased for a tiny fraction of their current value (Hopper, $3,000; Seurat, $20,000).
https://ladykflo.com/a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-by-georges-...
- thih9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks_(Hopper)
Wikipedia has a higher quality version of the painting, click the image in the article to see it.
- nickhalfasleep
This has recently been put back on display at The Art Institute in Chicago; and it is more wonderful in person. The interior glows with fluorescent light, a richness of color mixing that digital scans do not really capture yet.
- n4r9
Is it me, or does this article presume a lot of prior knowledge? I had to look up who "Jo" and "Ed Staples" are, and figure out what it meant by "suggesting once again the resurgence of Hopper’s painterly alter ego".
- ajay-b
Great Art Explained did a wonderful episode on this.