EDWARD HOPPER: “Nighthawks”, 1942 - oil on canvas, 84.1- 152.4 cm. - Chicago, Art Institute

“Probably on an unconscious way, I was painting the solitude of a great city”, said Hopper himself about this work. “Nighthawks” is not only the most famous and reproduced work by the artist, but it has also become the symbol of the solitude of the contemporary metropolis, and in one of the icons of the 20 th century Art.

Of this painting many subjective interpretations and considerations have been expressed, demonstrating the terrible emotion that the work causes in any observer. The vision of these four anonymous figures (mysteriously, Hopper called this painting “a three-character work”) inside a highly illuminated bar in the dark night at this jungle of asphalt produces an inevitable sensation of solitude. Not representing the entry to the bar, Hopper has made of it a glass prison in which nobody can enter, nor leave.