Top image:
Edward Hopper (1882–1967)
Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942.
Fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper
11 1/8 x 15 in. (28.3 x 38.1 cm)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Purchase and gift of Josephine N. Hopper by exchange 2011.65
© Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Bottom image:
Edward Hopper (1882–1967)
Nighthawks, 1942.
Oil on canvas
33 1⁄8 in × 60 in (84.1 cm × 152.4 cm )
Art Institute of Chicago
© Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper
Hopper Drawing – Whitney Museum, New York The Whitney Museum celebrates Edward Hopper’s achievements as a draftsman in the first major museum exhibition to focus on the artist’s drawings and working process. May 23 to October 6, 2013]]>
Source: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Along with many of his most iconic paintings, theexhibition features more than 200 drawings, the most extensive presentation to date of Hopper’sachievement in this medium, pairing suites of preparatory studies and related works with suchmajor oil paintings as New York Movie (1939), Office at Night (1940), Nighthawks (1942) andMorning in a City (1944).
The exhibition opens with an overview of Hopper’s drawing career. As a draftsman, Hopperfavored black chalk and the rich and subtle tone he was able to achieve with it. This sectionincludes a number of highly finished sheets executed from life, as well as illustrations, portraits,and preparatory studies.
The exhibition continues with seven sections combining paintings with their preparatory studiesand related works. One of the most significant of these brings together two of Hopper’s mostimportant canvases, the Whitney’s Early Sunday Morning (1930) and Nighthawks (1942), lent bythe Art Institute of Chicago. Nighthawks is, for the first time, shown with all nineteen of itsknown drawn studies, including a highly finished sheet recently acquired by the Whitney for its permanent collection. These drawings show the development of every element of this iconic painting, from the massing of its oblique architectural space to the precise arrangements offigures around the nighttime coffee shop’s counter. Shown together, Early Sunday Morning andNighthawks emphasizes the artist’s interests in New York City’s shifting urban fabric, andthe two pieces’ close conceptual relationship to one another as summations of his impressions ofurban life.
The exhibition also showcases Hopper’s magisterial 1939 painting New York Movie (lent by theMuseum of Modern Art) and the group of fifty-two preparatory studies Hopper made for thiswork, the largest number of drawings that exist for any painting in his oeuvre. These sheets traceHopper’s nearly two-month long process of working through the idea for this piece, from hisexploratory sketching trips in several Broadway movie palaces to a long and nuanced series ofcompositional studies for the dark, ornate interior depicted in the work, which he based on thePalace Theatre in Times Square. As with Early Sunday Morning and Nighthawks, photographicdocumentation of the actual sites that inspired the work will be included in the display.
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