Recently I went to see the special Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney Museum that just closed. Entitled "Edward Hopper's New York", the exhibit displayed Hopper's classic portraits of the the city as seen from the perspective of the common man and woman.
Hopper's NYC was not one of the skyscrapers, the famous tourists sites, the gorgeous parks or any kind of stereotypical cityscape. His city was the city of street corners and every day New Yorkers living their lives, of deserted streets as seen at night or first thing in the morning, of its beauty and loneliness, of people simply working to survive. Hopper's New York was the one we all live in but rarely see reflected back to us in art.
One of the paintings that was not in this exhibit, but that is probably his most famous, is "Nighthawks" that he painted in 1941. In 2018 I did a whole blog post about it and you can read it here.
In many way, this blog aspires to be what Hopper's paintings were -- an attempt to captures the city's emotional core, it's every day psychology, it's spirit and psyche, its underground existence. While Hopper certainly was a lot more talented than I'll ever be, he remains an inspiration to me.
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