The Essential Edward Hopper

The Essential

by Justin Spring

The great American realist Edward Hopper filled his canvases with sinister houses and blank-eyed humans, with otherworldly lighting and naked women in motel rooms, theater dancers, movie usherettes and people waiting in lobbies. Hopper's people inhabit an eerie, silent world that hypnotizes viewers.

Do you know why:
• Hopper leaves us feeling lonely and alienated?
• Hopper appeals to the voyeur in us?
• Hopper is so "American"?
• Hopper was smitten with movies, sex, and automobiles?
• Hopper uses the same woman in many of his paintings?

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 1998

About the author

Justin Spring is a New York based writer specializing in twentieth-century American art and culture. He is the author of many monographs, catalogs, museum publications, and books, including the biography Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art (Yale University Press, 2000) and Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Universe, 2002). He has been the recipient of a number of grants, fellowships, and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the International Association of Art Critics Best Show Award. He has held research fellowships from Yale University, Brown University, Radcliffe College and Amherst College. His monograph on Paul Cadmus was a finalist for the Lamda Literary Award in Art History.

Reviews

[Yoana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely accessible introduction to Hopper, suitable for complete beginners in the sphere of fine art. It held my attention and its rich illustrative material was a delight. However, I was extremely vexed by the blatantly sexist and far-fetched interpretations of the author - to him, if there is a whiff of a woman in a painting, it's an erotic painting, and the woman is most likely a prostitute. A woman naked in the privacy of her room - prostitute. A woman dressed in a hotel room - prostitute. A woman fully dressed drinking coffee by herself - likely a prostitute. Two women dining together in a restaurant - probably prostitutes. He calls "subtly erotic" a painting with a fully clothed female figure at one side – a theatre usherette just looking bored at her job. He straight up declares that the women in Hopper's paintings (not accounting for context, style or anything else besides the presence of a female figure) create a sexually charged atmosphere. For this guy, a female figure, no matter what it looks like or how it's painted, can only ever be a sexual symbol. It's like he's never entertained the thought that women are also people and could be painted merely as human beings, embodying the same universal ideas as male figures in painting - isolation, alienation, feeling of hopelessness in the modern age. Found it really grating.

[Gerald Thomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A high overview of Hopper’s life and work. The illustrations are abundant and the insights are very revealing. Spring knows his subject and obviously has a fondness for Hopper. A great place to start if you are looking to find out more about this amazing, American artist.

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is great for getting an overview and beginner's insight into artists and their best known works. This one about Edward Hopper was quite good and I really enjoyed seeing so many of his paintings as I read about his life.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must have for any Hopper fan!