Hopper, Edward, 1882–1967, American painter and engraver, b. Nyack, N.Y., studied in New York City with Robert Henri and other Ashcan School painters. Hopper lived in France for a year but was little influenced by the artistic currents there. His early paintings had slight success; he gained a reputation, however, through his etchings, which remain popular. The first one-man show of his paintings was held in 1920. Hopper excelled in creating realistic pictures of clear-cut, sunlit streets and houses, often without figures or with one or two anonymous men and women. In his paintings there is a frequent atmosphere of loneliness, an almost menacing starkness, and a clear sense of time of day or night. His work in oil and watercolor is slowly and carefully painted, with light and shade used for pattern rather than for modeling. Hopper is represented in many leading American museums. Early Sunday Morning (1930; Whitney Museum, N.Y.C.) and Nighthawks (1942; Art Institute of Chicago) are characteristic oils.
See catalogue raisonné ed. by G. Levin (1995); museum catalogs by L. Goodrich (1971) and U. Küster, ed. (2020); biographies by R. Hobbs (1987) and G. Levin (1995, repr. 2007); studies by L. Goodrich (1971), G. Levin (1981, repr. 1986), S. Wagstaff et al. (2004), C. Troyen et al. (2007), and O. Westheider and M. Philipp, ed. (2d ed., 2011).
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