Nighthawks | The Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories Exhibition History Art Institute of Chicago, The Fifty-third Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 29-Dec. 10, 1942, cat. 132. Indianapolis, 1943. Art Institute of Chicago, The Fifty-fourth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 28-Dec. 12, 1943, no. 15. New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper: Retrospective Exhibition, Feb. 11-Mar. 26, 1950, cat. 61, plate 28; traveled to Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Apr. 13-May 14, 1950, Detroit Institute of Arts, June 4-July 2, 1950. New York City, Wildenstein, Loan Exhibition of Seventy Twentieth Century American Paintings, Feb. 21-Mar. 22, 1952, cat. 54. Venice, Esposiazione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte, June 14-Oct.

19, 1952, cat. 26. Lake Forest College, Illinois. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper, Sept. 29-Nov. 29, 1964, cat. 43; traveled to Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 18-Jan. 31, 1965. Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, Fifty Years of Modern Art, June 14-July 31, 1966, cat. 81. New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist, Sept. 23, 1980-Jan. 18, 1981, cat. 386; traveled to London, Hayward Gallery, Feb. 11-Mar. 29, 1981 (separate Catalogue, no 96, p. 47), Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Apr. 22-June 17, 1981, Düsseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle, July 10-Sept. 6, 1981, Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 3-Nov.

29, 1981, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dec.16, 1981-Feb. 14, 1982. Essen, Germany, Museum Folkwang, Edward Hopper und die Fotografie: die Warheit des Sichtbaren (Edward Hopper and Photography: The Truth of the Real), June 28-Sept. 27, 1992, p. 63, ill. London, Tate Modern, Edward Hopper, May 27-Sept. 5, 2004; traveled to Cologne, Museum Ludwig, Oct. 9, 2004-Jan. 9, 2005. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, October 3-December 31, 2006. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Edward Hopper, May 6-August 19, 2007; traveled to Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, September 16, 2007-January 21, 2008; Art Institute of Chicago, February 16-May 11, 2008.

Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Edward Hopper, June 12-September 16, 2012; traveled to Paris, Galeries nationales d'exposition du Grand Palais, October 5, 2012-January 28, 2013, Paris only. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper Drawings, May 23-October 6, 2013; travels to Dallas Museum of Art, November 17, 2013-February 16, 2014; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, March 15-June 22, 2014, New York only. Art Institute of Chicago, Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, November 10, 2013-January 27, 2014; traveled to Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, February 22-May 18, 2014, cat. 28.

Publication History Gail Levin, “Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Surrealism, and the War,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 22, 2 (1996), pp. 180-95, fig. 1. The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture, selected by James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein (Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), p. 85, ill. Judith A. Barter et al., "American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955," (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 133. Nina Baym et al., eds., "The Norton Anthology of American Literature," (W. W. Norton & Company, 2012), 8th edition, (ill.). Arthur Shimamura, "Experiencing Art: In the Brain of the Beholder" (Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 237 (ill.).

Derek Matravers, "Introducing Philosophy of Art: In Eight Case Studies," (Routledge, 2013), (ill.). Duane Preble Emeritus et al., Prebles' Artforms (Pearson, 2013), 11th ed., p. 428. (ill.). Robert Burleigh, "Edward Hopper Paints His World," (Henry Holt and Co., 2014), (ill.). Steven Mintz, "The Prime of Life: A History of Modern Adulthood," (Belknap Press, 2015), (ill.). Ramsay H. Slugg, "Handbook of Practical Planning for Art Collectors and Their Advisors," (ABA Book Publishing, 2015), (ill.). Judith A. Barter, ed. "America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s" exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2016), fig. 3, p. 178. Ownership History The artist; consigned to Frank Rehn Galleries, 1942; sold to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1942.

Add this item to: 10 Artists Influenced by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks | Mental Floss 10 Artists Influenced by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks The Art Institute of Chicago; Friends of American Art Collection Like us on Facebook If the old saying is right, and imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then Edward Hopper just may be the most adulated artist of all time. And Nighthawks, his 1942 painting of a desolate late-night diner, is his magnum opus. In addition to being one of the American art world’s most recognizable masterpieces, Nighthawks is also one of its most imitated. From art to film to music to poetry, Hopper’s ode to loneliness has been honored, copied, satirized, and analyzed for more than 70 years. As New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art readies “ Hopper Drawing ”—the first major exhibition to highlight Hopper’s creative process, including a film series of the movies that inspired the realist’s work—we’re taking a look at 10 artists who have paid tribute to Hopper’s best-known painting in their own work. 1.

George Segal, The Diner (1964-1966) Image courtesy Walker Art Center Pop artist George Segal adapted the same process used to make orthopedic casts to create his life-sized tableaus, which he called “situation sculptures.” In the case of The Diner, completed in 1966, he used salvaged parts of a real diner to create a Nighthawks-esque sense of isolation . 2. Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner (1975) The title, album cover, and lyrics of Tom Waits’ first live album are all Hopper-inspired. Its working title, Nighthawk Postcards from Easy Street, was changed to reflect the opening line to “Eggs and Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson),” the third song on the album. 3. Dario Argento, Deep Red (1976) So frequently have filmmakers attempted to give character to Hopper’s famous diner scene that it’s actually considered a television trope—called the “Nighthawks Shot”—with its own listing on TVTropes.org .

Italian master of horror Dario Argento went there in 1976, when he re-created the diner and its patrons as a set for the giallo film Deep Red. 4. Ralph Goings, Tiled Lunch Counter (1979) Image courtesy RalphGoings.com Tiled Lunch Counter is just one of many diner scenes painted by 85-year-old photorealist Ralph Goings, whose work takes a brighter approach than Hopper in its lighting scheme but evokes a similar sense of alienation. 5. Herbert Ross, Pennies from Heaven (1981) Five years after Argento did it, director Herbert Ross created a replica of Hopper’s diner for the musical Pennies from Heaven, starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. 6. Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982) Though futuristic in its content and set design, director Ridley Scott cites Nighthawks as a major influence on the look of Blade Runner. In Paul M. Sammon’s Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner , Scott notes, “I was constantly waving a reproduction of this painting under the noses of the production team to illustrate the look and mood I was after.” 7.

Gottfried Helnwein, Boulevard of Broken Dreams (1984) Image courtesy Life? Seriously. Funny! In 1984, Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein told his own pop culture-inspired version of Nighthawks when he painted Boulevard of Broken Dreams , an almost exact replica of Hopper’s original painting, with the former patrons replaced by James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe, who are being served by Elvis Presley. (Helnwein’s work, in turn, inspired the Green Day song of the same name.) 8. Joyce Carol Oates' Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, 1942 (1997) Only Hopper himself knows for sure what the characters in Nighthawks are thinking about. But Joyce Carol Oates tried imagining those interior monologues in her poem, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, 1942, focusing mainly on the painting’s sole female. It begins: The three men are fully clothed, long sleeves, even hats, though it’s indoors, and brightly lit, and there’s a woman.

The woman is wearing a short-sleeved red dress cut to expose her arms, a curve of her creamy chest; she’s contemplating a cigarette in her right hand, thinking that her companion has finally left his wife but can she trust him? Hopper Drawing | Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art Wed–Thurs10:30 am–6 pm Fri–Sat10:30 am–10 pm Sun10:30 am–6 pm Works with Resources for Teachers Browse by artist’s name The perfect gift for any art enthusiast: Memberships start at just $85. Explore Hopper’s Studies Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942. Fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper; 11 1/8 × 15 in. (28.3 × 38.1 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase and gift of Josephine N.

Hopper by exchange 2011.65 Hopper Drawing is the first major museum exhibition to focus on the drawings and creative process of Edward Hopper (1882–1967). More than anything else, Hopper's drawings reveal the continually evolving relationship between observation and invention in the artist's work, and his abiding interest in the spaces and motifs--the street, the movie theatre, the office, the bedroom, the road—that he would return to throughout his career as an artist. This exhibition showcases the Whitney's unparalleled collection of Hopper's work, which includes over 2,500 drawings bequeathed to the museum by his widow Josephine Hopper, many of which have never before been exhibited or researched. The exhibition surveys Hopper's significant and underappreciated achievements as a draftsman, and pairs many of his greatest oil paintings, including Early Sunday Morning (1930), New York Movie (1939), Office at Night (1940), and Nighthawks (1942), with their preparatory drawings and related works. This exhibition also features groundbreaking archival research into the buildings, spaces and urban environments that inspired his work.

Hopper Drawing is organized by Carter E. Foster, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawing. Significant support for this exhibition is provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation, The Selz Foundation, Barney A. Ebsworth, Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield, The Robert Lehman Foundation, Jane Carroll, Aaron I. Fleischman and Lin Lougheed, Arlene and Robert Kogod, and an anonymous donor. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. Works from the Exhibition View more 12 displayed of 34 Installation Photography Off-site: A Hopper-Inspired Pop-up at the Flatiron Building In celebration of Hopper Drawing, a life-size window installation of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942) is on view inside the landmark Flatiron prow , one of the original architectural inspirations for this iconic painting. Watch: Edward Hopper’s New York A Walking Tour Whitney curator Carter Foster visits New York City sites—including the Flatiron building—that inspired Hopper’s iconic paintings. To activate closed captioning on this video, play the video.

A CC button will appear on the player controls, and will give you the option to display captions in English. For more information, visit the accessibility page . In the News "The back and forth between the works on paper and on canvas makes the show doubly illuminating, and thrilling." Edward Hopper (1882–1967) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (10) Essay Edward Hopper was born in Nyack, New York, a town located on the west side of the Hudson River, to a middle-class family that encouraged his artistic abilities. After graduating from high school, he studied briefly at the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York City (1899–1900), and then he enrolled in classes at the New York School of Art (1900–1906). In his shift from illustration to the fine arts, he studied with William Merritt Chase , a leading American Impressionist painter, and with Robert Henri, who exhorted his students to paint the everyday conditions of their own world in a realistic manner.

His classmates at the school included George Bellows, Guy Pène du Bois, and Rockwell Kent. After working as an illustrator for a short time, Hopper made three trips abroad: first to Paris and various locations across Europe (1906–7), a second trip to Paris (1909), and a short visit to Paris and Spain the following year (1910). Although he had little interest in the vanguard developments of Fauvism or Cubism , he developed an enduring attachment to the work of Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet , whose compositional devices and depictions of modern urban life would influence him for years to come. In the 1910s, Hopper struggled for recognition. He exhibited his work in a variety of group shows in New York, including the Exhibition of Independent Artists (1910) and the famous Armory Show of 1913, in which he was represented by a painting titled Sailing (1911; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh ). Although he worked primarily in oil painting, he also mastered the medium of etching, which brought him more immediate success in sales ( 25.31.7 ).

He began living in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, where he would continue to maintain a studio throughout his career, and he adopted a lifelong pattern of spending the summers in New England. In 1920, at the age of thirty-seven, he received his first one-person exhibition. The Whitney Studio Club, recently founded by the heiress and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, showed sixteen of his paintings. Although nothing was sold from the exhibition, it was a symbolic milestone in Hopper’s career. Just a few years later, Hopper found himself in a far more prosperous and prominent position as an artist. His second one-person exhibition, at the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery in New York, was such a commercial success that every painting was sold; the Rehn Gallery would represent him for the rest of his career. In 1930, his painting House by the Railroad (1925; Museum of Modern Art, New York ) was the first work to be acquired for the collections of the newly founded Museum of Modern Art. This image embodied the characteristics of Hopper’s style: clearly outlined forms in strongly defined lighting, a cropped composition with an almost “cinematic” viewpoint, and a mood of eerie stillness.

Meanwhile, Hopper’s personal life had also advanced: in 1923, he married the artist Josephine Verstille Nivison, who had been a fellow student in Robert Henri’s class. Jo, as Hopper called her, would become an indispensable element of his art. She posed for nearly all of his female figures and assisted him with arranging the props and settings of his studio sessions; she also encouraged him to work more extensively in the medium of watercolor painting, and kept meticulous records of his completed works, exhibitions, and sales. In 1933, Hopper received further critical recognition as the subject of a retrospective exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art. He was by then celebrated for his highly identifiable mature style, in which urban settings, New England landscapes, and interiors are all pervaded by a sense of silence and estrangement ( 25.31.2 ). His chosen locations are often vacant of human activity, and they frequently imply the transitory nature of contemporary life. At deserted gas stations, railroad tracks, and bridges, the idea of travel is fraught with loneliness and mystery ( 37.44 ).

Other scenes are inhabited only by a single pensive figure or by a pair of figures who seem not to communicate with one another. These people are rarely represented in their own homes; instead, they pass time in the temporary shelter of movie theaters, hotel rooms, or restaurants ( 31.62 ). In Hopper’s most iconic painting, Nighthawks (1942; Art Institute of Chicago ), four customers and a waiter inhabit the brightly lit interior of a city diner at night. They appear lost in their own weariness and private concerns, their disconnection perhaps echoing the wartime anxiety felt by the nation as a whole. The Hoppers spent nearly every summer from 1930 through the 1950s in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, particularly in the town of Truro, where they built their own house. Hopper used several nearby locations as frequent, repeated subjects in his art ( 62.95 ; 1974.356.25 ). He also began to travel farther for new imagery, to locations ranging from Vermont to Charleston, an automobile trip through the Southwest to California, and four visits to Mexico ( 45.157.2 ).

Wherever he traveled, however, Hopper sought and explored his chosen themes: the tensions between individuals (particularly men and women), the conflict between tradition and progress in both rural and urban settings, and the moods evoked by various times of day. Hopper’s work was showcased in several further retrospective exhibitions throughout his later career, particularly at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; in 1952, he was chosen to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. Despite commercial success and the awards he received in the 1940s and 1950s, Hopper found himself losing critical favor as the school of Abstract Expressionism came to dominate the art world. Even during an era of national prosperity and cultural optimism, moreover, his art continued to suggest that the individual could still suffer a powerful sense of isolation in postwar America ( 53.183 ). He never lacked popular appeal, however, and by the time of his death in 1967, Hopper had been reclaimed as a major influence by a new generation of American realist artists. Jessica Murphy Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art June 2007 Citation Murphy, Jessica.

“Edward Hopper (1882–1967).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (June 2007) Further Reading Levin, Gail. Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. Levin, Gail. Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist. New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Lyons, Deborah, ed. Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997. Additional Essays by Jessica Murphy Murphy, Jessica. “ Charles Sheeler (1883–1965) .” (November 2009) Murphy, Jessica.

“ Precisionism .” (June 2007) Related Edward Hopper’s Creative Process: The Nighthawks and the Idyll Edward Hopper’s Creative Process: The Nighthawks and the Idyll Anastasia Bow-Bertrand Renowned for his atmospheric oil paintings of lone or coupled figures, rural scapes and urban architecture, Edward Hopper’s creative process has been considered anew with a touring exhibition entitled Hopper Drawing: A Painter’s Process, organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art. We take a look at the show in the context of Hopper’s life and work, and come to unexpected conclusions about this all- American realist painter. Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Morning Sun, 1952, Oil on canvas, 28 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. (71.4 x 101.9 cm) | ©Columbus Museum of Art; Howald Fund Purchase A flame-haired woman in a red dress carefully studies something held between her fingers, while her other arm rests next to a suited, cigarette-smoking man, his face overshadowed by a grey fedora with black band.

Sitting on wooden bar stools they lean on a counter at which another man sits, his back to us. The salt and pepper shakers are half empty. This offers a personally perceived reflection of Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’, of which he himself said: ‘Nighthawks seems to be the way I think of a night street. I didn’t see it as particularly lonely. I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger. Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city’. This loneliness is characteristic of much of Hopper’s work. At face value, Hopper is the ubiquitous realist painter who depicts everyday America in compositions lifted from his everyday world. However, his art and his philosophy run deep, unsettling us with an unexpected defamiliarisation, and an uncanny sense of being held at arm’s length. Born in 1882 in the town of Nyack, New York , Hopper’s early flair for art, and his obvious talent, was encouraged by his family. Aged 18 he spent a year at the Correspondence School of Illustrating, New York, before moving to the New York School of Art where he studied for six years until 1906.

While at this fine arts institution, Hopper encountered the likes of Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase , both of whom acted as professional mentors to him, and sought to channel his paintings into a realistic study on the present environment, most notably through life studies. Direct peers included George Bellows, Rockwell Kent and John Sloan, all of whom impacted his own development and artistic discourse with his immediate milieu. Edward Hopper, 1882-1967, Study for Morning Sun, 1952, Fabricated chalk on paper, 11 15/16 x 18 15/16 in. (30.3 x 48.1 cm) | © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y. No stranger to the European continent, Hopper frequented Paris several times in the decade following his graduation from the New York School of Art. While in the French capital, Hopper found inspiration from the less contemporaneously popular Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas’ depictions of urban life as they knew, and saw it.

A decade or so followed, during which Hopper was primarily based between Greenwich Village and New England, and he developed his fluid manner of using oils for which he has become renowned, as well as mastering etching, but to little public recognition. Indeed, it was not until 1920, aged 37, that he received his first solo exhibition at the then recently established Whitney Social Club, which featured sixteen paintings. This significant show propagated more, with another exhibition following soon after at the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery, New York, an establishment that became central to his public and professional image development. Meanwhile, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), freshly open, and keen to source the best contemporary work of its own city, acquired Hopper’s ‘House by the Railroad’ (1925) in 1930; a suitable choice typically considered to characterize his distinctive style and drive at that time. Three years later they held a retrospective exhibition of Hopper, which further raised his profile among international art circles, as well in the mind’s eye and media of quotidian New York.

Since this flourishing of his artistic profile and productivity, the Edward Hopper House Art Center was posthumously founded as a means of preserving the Nyack house in which Hopper primarily lived until 1910 and frequented until his death in 1967. Now, the house is symbolic of the community spirit that interweaves every stroke of Hopper’s work, as well as memorializing a building that was party to his ideas and offered the windows to the views of so many of his oeuvres. Now functioning as a not-for-profit organization aiming to nurture and showcase artistic talent, it also nurtures a wide-reaching engagement with Hopper’s own work, history, and textual art in documented letters and memorabilia. Edward Hopper, 1882-1967, Study for Conference at Night, 1949, Fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper, 8 1/8 x 5 in. (20.6 x 12.7 cm), irregular | © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y.

Meanwhile, sitting in the underbelly of North America, the Dallas Museum of Art recently hosted an exhibition titled Hopper Drawing: A Painter’s Process, originally sponsored by the Whitney Museum of American Art . Describing itself as ‘the first museum exhibition to focus on the drawings and creative process of Edward Hopper’, this imperative to present the workings of this iconic artist highlights the current reassessment of Hopper. More than the glorious depicter of all-American idylls, this touring project exposes a man whose creative process allowed him to explore the barest bones – and the ugliest – of human existence. Through his relationship with his regular model and wife Josephine (nee Verstille Nivision), the idiosyncratic image of the isolated woman that haunts so many of his pieces adopts a nostalgic tone, while the prioritization of a dark palette and shadow across his portfolio is suggestive of the ‘other’; the latent depression of everyday life and a strange stillness that opposes his personal sense of the irrepressible progression of time.

Even now, the European recipients of Hopper’s work frequently see it as supporting stereotypical images of the American lifestyle, particularly the scenes of weather boarded, white-washed New England houses and the landscape of Cape Cod, Massachusetts , where Hopper regularly holidayed with his family. However, the recurring tropes of an all-star United States, the realistic clean lines and light-rich paintings have been increasingly registered as mere surface value, behind which Hopper invites us to consider the fault marks in the seemingly perfect calm of quintessential coffee shop suburbia. Hopper’s images invariably create a cinematic focus, with a telescopic pressure on the objects on display. For this is the sense of much of his work – the sense that it is ‘on show’ – opening itself up to critique, facilitated by disallowing any familiarization with the scenes under inspection. This oxymoronic tension is characteristic of Hopper.

The lost privacy of the half-uncovered female in ‘Summer Interior’ (1909) appearing to be on the edge of a shaft of light from the blinds drawn down, but part open… The excessive gilded topography of ‘Silbers Pharmacy’ and the ostentatious window displays of ‘Drug Store’ (1927) highlight the striking lack of custom, while the houses perched on the crest of ‘New York, New Haven and Hartford’ (1931) are importantly beyond a railway track, set back behind another manmade transportation, that at once brings closer and provokes distance. Travel is endemic in Hooper’s work, in terms of the passage of daylight, the movement of wind and waves, as well as pragmatics of American civilization and leisure: architecture, sailing boats, gas stations, railroads and lighthouses. Frequently at play are struggles between tradition and progress, rural and urban, man and woman, presence and absence. Nature and man also constantly convene on Hopper’s canvas in apparently harmonious compositions.

However, it is the twinge of doubt as to this claim that I feel Hopper invites us to pursue through considerations of the potential emptiness of being the sole occupants of a painting, other than a cup of coffee of ‘The Automat’ (1927), or worse, the expressionless, faceless companion of ‘Chop Suey’ (1929). It is for this reason that Dallas’ A Painter’s Process was such an intriguing account of the artist. Rather than accepting the finished products at face value, they looked to the origins, the primitive sketches, and the slosh of watercolors, ultimately making viewers question the finality of any of Hopper’s work. Instead, his paintings invite a continuum of thought, provoking in their 2D preservation the possibility of a living legacy of his work – and of his social observations and political vision – across America, and indeed the Western world, today. Perhaps we will never really know what Hopper had to say, apart from by looking at every stage of his work. After all, he himself advised: ‘the whole answer is there on the canvas’.

Edward Hopper, 1882-1967, Soir Bleu, 1914, Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 71 15/16 in. (91.8 x 182.7 cm) | © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y. Hopper Drawing: A Painter’s Process , organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, is on display at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, until 20 June 2014. Nighthawks | The Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago Home > Exhibitions > Edward Hopper > Exhibition Themes > Nighthawks Nighthawks Hopper’s most famous painting was inspired by a diner located on a wedge-shaped corner of Greenwich Avenue in Hopper’s New York neighborhood.

In order to depict this scene, he explained, “I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger.” The round stools, placed at wide intervals, and the spare counters, on which stand a few coffee mugs, sugar jars, napkin holders, and an abandoned water glass, are rendered with deadpan precision, emphasizing the empty space between them. A sense of disquiet seems to echo the figures’ enigmatic relationship with one another. Do the four people know each other, or have they come into the diner to take refuge in the silent company of strangers? Nighthawks exemplifies Hopper’s facility at capturing the reality of modern life and representing emotional states through physical settings. It is a quiet, introspective picture. The architecture defines the composition, and the light orders, balances, and clarifies it. Hopper’s aesthetic vision, which has become associated with a particular brand of American realism, was the product of a rich combination of influences. Like most of his fellow Americans, the artist was an avid moviegoer, and the cinematic techniques of early film noir, including the prominent use of angles, shadows, patterns of light, and scenes shot through and framed by windows and doorways, made their way into his pictures.

In books, as in movies, Hopper was drawn to works created in spare, strong, and visual terms. He admired Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers,” for instance, most of which takes place at the counter of a diner, and modern detective novels, in which a striving for simplicity came from an unsentimental desire to convey the truth. Merging these influences with certain qualities of French Impressionism , Postimpressionism , and Surrealism , Nighthawks is appealing in its distillation of subject and its unmistakable Americanness. On May 13, 1942, Hopper wrote to Daniel Catton Rich, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, that he was “very much pleased that you like my Nighthawks well enough to acquire it for the Art Institute. It is, I believe, one of the very best things I have painted. I seem to have come nearer to saying what I want to say in my work, this past winter, than I ever have before.” Reworked and parodied countless times, Nighthawks has become an icon of American culture. Edward Hopper. Nighthawks, 1942. Friends of American Art Collection.

15 Things You Might Not Know About 'Nighthawks' | Mental Floss 15 Things You Might Not Know About 'Nighthawks' Edward Hopper. Nighthawks, 1942. The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection. Like us on Facebook The quiet night scene of Edward Hopper’s most renowned painting sticks in the mind of anyone who sees it and feels familiar to anyone who’s taken an art history class. It may seem straightforward, but this deceptively simple piece holds a lot of secrets. 1. HOPPER’S WIFE WAS ITS first art historian. Josephine Hopper (née Nivison) oversaw a shared journal, where she and her husband took notes on his paintings. This is how we know the precise date of Nighthawks' completion (January 21, 1942), and various other details, like that the painting was originally titled Night Hawks. 2. Nighthawks was an instant classic.

When Daniel Catton Rich, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, first laid eyes on the painting a few short months after Hopper put on the final touches, he declared it was as " fine as Homer "—referencing the 19th century American landscape painter. Rich was quick to purchase Nighthawks for the Art Institute for $3000 ($43,200.37 adjusting for inflation ). The Hopper classic is still on display in the Institute’s galleries. 3. It's bigger than you MIGHT expect. A quiet scene that could be the beginning or end of a million different stories, Nighthawks seems like it might be a small painting like the Mona Lisa . But in fact, it measures 33 1/8 inches by 60 inches, roughly 2.75 feet by 5 feet. 4. The TITLE Nighthawks may have been A NOD TO one of the diner's patrons.

In Josephine's notes, she wrote a description of one of the customers: "Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding cigarette." This note suggests that the prominent nose of this patron makes the painting’s title a bit more literal. 5. Both Edward and Josephine Hopper were models for Nighthawks. In a letter to his sister Marion, Josephine shared , "Ed has just finished a very fine picture—a lunch counter at night with 3 figures. Night Hawks would be a fine name for it. E. posed for the two men in a mirror and I for the girl. He was about a month and half working on it." 6. Hopper storyboarded the painting ahead of Nighthawks' creation. Hopper became an avid sketch artist when he was just 10 years old, and as an adult he could often be found prowling the streets of New York, sketch pad and pencil in hand. While sketches are often the first step for a painting's creation, Hopper took it a step further by sketching storyboards to pick the precise moments he wanted to immortalize in the final painting.

A 2013 exhibition at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art displayed 200 Hopper sketches, including 19 that led to Nighthawks, clearly laying out the work's evolution. 7. A HEMINGWAY SHORT STORY MAY HAVE HELPED INSPIRE THE PAINTING. Noted Hopper biographer Gail Levin has said , "Nighthawks was inspired by Hemingway's short story 'The Killers,' which Hopper read in Scribner's magazine and liked so much when it first came out, that he wrote a fan letter to Scribner's. He said that this writer was so much better than the rest and it was unusual that it wasn't sentimental or saccharin like so many stories. But that short story has the sense of something about to happen, and it never does. In a sense, Hopper's paintings are just like that. So that enables writers and filmmakers–fiction writers and poets, and other artists, perhaps too–to project their own imagination…and the viewer in general." 8. There may be some influence from Van Gogh's Café At Night.

Based on the similar theme and concentration on the play of light at night, Levin has also proposed that the famous Vincent Van Gogh piece may have sparked ideas in Hopper. Interestingly, Café at Night was exhibited in New York in January of 1942, right as Hopper was working on Nighthawks. It's probable that Hopper would have seen Van Gogh’s painting, as his own works were also on display at the same venue. 9. A popular reading of the piece focuses on "wartime isolation." Its characters are separated from the outside world by the light and windows Hopper carefully rendered. There's no door shown that would allow the viewer conceivable entrance into this lonely nighttime world. And even in their shared space, the characters are close without touching. Painted right after the American entry into World War II, Nighthawks can be seen as an illustration of the chilling effects of that world-changing conflict. 10. But For Hopper, it was about feeling alone in a crowd. Many of the artist’s works reflected the isolation that could be felt amid the bustle of New York City.

Of Nighthawks, the New York native said , "Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.” 11. The diner's flUorescent light MADE HOPPER’S JOB TRICKIER. In the early 1940s, commercial use of fluorescent lighting was still a relatively new phenomenon. To properly capture its luminance, Hopper experimented with a zinc white paint instead of a lead white one. However, in a lengthy interview recorded on June 17, 1959, Hopper explained how the zinc white ultimately cracked, demanding a renovation where it was replaced by the lead white. Because of this bad experience, Hopper never used zinc white again. 12. Hopper claimed THE Nighthawks diner was based on a real place. He was cagey about naming the actual eatery, though. His only clue: "[Nighthawks] was suggested by a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet." 13. The actual location of this inspiration is a matter of debate. Popular opinion favors Mulry Square, a small triangular lot at Greenwich Avenue and Seventh Avenue.

However, historical records show that a gas station occupied the lot in the early 1940s, not a diner. In 2014, a restaurant on Greenwich Street declared itself Nighthawks' inspiration after a Chicago native wandered in and noted the similarities between the place's layout and the famous painting. This is how Classic's Café at 679 Greenwich Street came to change its name to Nighthawks . 14. The Nighthawks diner is likely an amalgamation OF SEVERAL SPOTS. In May 2013, New York Magazine set out to track down the real inspiration for Nighthawks, scouring streets and historical photographs to settle the discussion once and for all. They ultimately determined Hopper's picture-perfect diner was made up of various elements of Manhattan architecture. These components include a glass-and-steel storefront on 11th Street, the curve of the Flatiron Building, and a long-gone restaurant called Crawford Lunch. Fittingly, a 3D version of Nighthawks was created within a display window of the Flatiron Building in the summer of 2013. 15. Nighthawks has inspired countless other artists.

As one of the most iconic works in the history of American art, Nighthawks has popped up throughout pop culture . In the fine arts, you can see its inspiration in George Segal's sculpture The Diner, Roger Brown's painting Puerto Rican Wedding, Banksy's Nighthawks and Gottfried's Helnwein's Boulevard of Broken Dreams , which populated Phillie's diner with tragic celebrities like James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Poet Wolf Wondratschek and novelist Joyce Carol Oates both wrote works named for Nighthawks. American singer-songwriter Tom Waits named his 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner and threw his own spin on the painting by placing himself in a similar scenario on the record's cover. Nighthawks classic scene is alluded to in films like Dario Argento's Deep Red, Wim Wenders’s The End of Violence , James Foley's Glengarry Glen Ross , and Herbert Ross' Pennies From Heaven . Plus it influenced the aesthetic of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Alex Proyas' Dark City . More from mental_floss...

Nighthawks Edward Hopper Painting Nighthawks is one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century, discover the magic of Edward Hopper's masterpiece Edward Hopper captures customers sitting in an atmospheric late night American diner in his 1942 painting, Nighthawks. The Art Institute of Chicago saw the painting's qualities straight away, snapping it up for $3,000. They continue to own and display it today, and it sits in a prominent position within an impressive catalogue of work now owned by this institution. This particular artwork is the most famous of works from artist Hopper, and even ranks as one of the best known from the entire 20th century, certainly within American art and probably internationally too. In Nighthawks, Edward Hopper managed to create an atmostphere the like of which cannot be seen in any other painting, either from his career of anyone else's. Most of Hopper paintings feature daytime landscapes and seascapes which offer a simple but sublime finish that is immediately popular within the mainstream art public. Nighthawks differs with a much more complex and moody appeal which offers greater longevity.

The Nighthawks painting came about soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and perhaps helps to sum up the negative feelings within the United States around this time. Hopper normally produced paintings with a positive and calming look with a great attention to the natural beauty of Maine within the United States which was also where he lived for most of his career. It's green hills proved an inspiration for many of his paintings, but Nighthawks represents an alternative mood that offers another view into the complex mind of this talented artist. The original Nighthawks painting measures 84.1 cm × 152.4 cm (33.1 in × 60 in) and is now stored at the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. It is certainly one of the biggest draws within this key American centre for arts, with other notable entries including Georges-Pierre Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Mary Cassatt's The Child's Bath and El Greco's Saint Martin and the Beggar. There is a fuller list of famous paintings within the Art Institute of Chicago at the bottom of this page.

Hopper creates a feeling of urban loneliness and emptiness with this painting and he would commonly include this within many of his paintings, though others were normally accompanied with a more upbeat and brighter background from a more rural location. There can be no doubt that Hopper was happier within the countryside and that he reflected this in his accomplished art. For those interested, you can also find more Edward Hopper paintings here. Much discussion is always made about any great painting and the emotions of the artist that produced it at the time, and Nighthawks is no different. Interviews with the artist since this painting as well as additional research in other areas has suggested that Edward Hopper was not intending on specifically addressing the supposed loneliness of city dwellers when depicting the scene of Nighthawks, but he admitted that he may have unwittingly produced such a look within the painting once it was complete. Edward Hopper was someone who loved visits to the cinema and avidly followed the major American Hollywood blockbusters of the time, with his own artistic eye that would see things that the mainstream movie-goers may have missed.

Some believe that the more negative and dark films may have influenced paintings like Nighthawks and also another painting entitled Night Shadows which itself appeared much earlier in 1921. There is even some belief that his own career may have influenced filmography and specifically the film noir movement. Edward Hopper and his Nighthawks painting have certainly influenced many different elements with the media and art world of 20th century America, and it is pleasing to see the name and reputation of this skilled artist continue to remain strong, even years after his death back in 1967. The most exposure came recently when Nighthawks was featured within a Simpsons TV programme which underlines it's continued prominence within American contemporary art. Edward Hopper was a truly American artist who captured many great scenes of this beautiful country within his paintings and the artist would always reflect on the positive elements of the country, be it landscapes or seascapes close to his home in Maine. As well as the well chosen scenes, Hopper's own style of painting also captured them in the best light possible. Nighthawks is often reproduced as an art print with a black inner-frame which matched the dark look which dominates the painting. You can see examples of that on this page.

The links take you to the Art.com gallery where a great variety of choice is available, with many different colours of innerframes available, as well as frames in different styles, colours and sizes. Nighthawks is a painting which can suit many different homes and these options can help ensure that the most appropriate solution is selected. There is also an excellent website here where you can buy your own Nighthawks print from hopperprints.com. Nighthawks by Edward Hopper is a famous oil painting by this respected American artist. Nighthawks remains Hopper's best known and most popular work and is a common choice as art print reproduction for those looking to add some classic American art to their own homes. You will find links below to where you can buy your own Nighthawks print, poster or stretched canvas and there is also plenty of information on the artist himself for those interested in learning more about Nighthawks. At the foot of the page is a list of further Edward Hopper paintings too if you want to see more from the career of this famous American painter.

List of Famous Paintings within the Art Institute of Chicago This Chicago institute is famous for displaying some of art's finest paintings and you can see a list below of some of the great works which sit besides Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Mary Cassatt, The Child's Bath Georges-Pierre Seurat , Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Grant Wood, American Gothic Nighthawks, 1942 by Edward Hopper Nighthawks, 1942 by Edward Hopper Courtesy of Nighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is Hopper's most famous work and is one of the most recognizable paintings in American art. Within months of its completion, it was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago for $3,000, and has remained there ever since. Starting shortly after their marriage in 1924, Edward Hopper and his wife, Josephine (Jo), kept a journal in which he would, using a pencil, make a sketch-drawing of each of his paintings, along with a precise description of certain technical details.

Jo Hopper would then add additional information in which the themes of the painting are, to some degree, illuminated. A review of the page on which "Nighthawks" is entered shows (in Edward Hopper's handwriting) that the intended name of the work was actually "Night Hawks", and that the painting was completed on January 21, 1942. Jo's handwritten notes about the painting give considerably more detail, including the interesting possibility that the painting's evocative title may have had its origins as a reference to the beak-shaped nose of the man at the bar: Night + brilliant interior of cheap restaurant. Bright items: cherry wood counter + tops of surrounding stools; light on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade green tiles 3/4 cross canvas at base of glass of window curving at corner. Light walls, dull yellow ocre [sic] door into kitchen right. Very good looking blond boy in white (coat, cap) inside counter. Girl in red blouse, brown hair eating sandwich. Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding cigarette. Other figure dark sinister back at left. Light side walk outside pale greenish.

Darkish red brick houses opposite. Sign across top of restaurant, dark Phillies 5c cigar. Picture of cigar. Outside of shop dark, green. Note: bit of bright ceiling inside shop against dark of outside street at edge of stretch of top of window. Nighthawks was probably Hopper's most ambitious essay in capturing the night-time effects of manmade light. For one thing, the diner's plate-glass windows cause far more light to spill out onto the sidewalk and the brownstones on the far side of the street than is true in any of his other paintings. As well, this interior light comes from more than a single lightbulb, with the result that multiple shadows are cast, and some spots are brighter than others as a consequence of being lit from more than one angle. Across the street, the line of shadow caused by the upper edge of the diner window is clearly visible towards the top of the painting. These windows, and the ones below them as well, are partly lit by an unseen streetlight, which projects its own mix of light and shadow. As a final note, the bright interior light causes some of the surfaces within the diner to be reflective.

This is clearest in the case of the right-hand edge of the rear window, which reflects a vertical yellow band of interior wall, but fainter reflections can also be made out, in the counter-top, of three of the diner's occupants. None of these reflections would be visible in daylight. Hopper's biographer, Gail Levin, speculates that Hopper may have been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh 's Caf� at Night , which was showing at a gallery in New York in January 1942. The similarity in lighting and themes makes this possible; it is certainly very unlikely that Hopper would have failed to see the exhibition, and as Levin notes, the painting had twice been exhibited in the company of Hopper's own works. Beyond this, there is no evidence that Caf� at Night exercised an influence on Nighthawks. Although there is no evidence at all (other than the fact that Hopper admired the story), Levin also suggests that he may have been inspired by Ernest Hemingway's 1927 short story, The Killers. MOST POPULAR PAINTINGS

Question: ‘Nighthawks’ is the work of which American artist?
Answer: Edward Hopper