Edward Hopper Biography

American artist Edward Hopper was the foremost realist of the mid-20th century, famous for his lonely scenes of ordinary life, such as the all-night diner in 1942’s Nighthawks.

Edward Hopper studied illustration at the New York School of Art, traveled to Paris in 1906 and returned to New York in 1907. He made a living in commercial art until the 1920s, when he made a breakthrough with watercolors, at the suggestion of his wife, Josephine Verstille Nivision. Jo and Edward Hopper were married in 1924, and her own painting career became enveloped by his; they worked in the same New York studio for most of their lives, and she was his model for many paintings.

Hopper is known mostly for New England landscapes and New York urban scenes, done with strong shadows and a sense of isolation. Even when the art world was overwhelmed by modernism and abstract expressionism, Hopper was recognized for his compositions and unique vision.

Nighthawks, his most famous painting, shows three diners sitting at a bare counter, separated by a window from an equally barren city street. His other famous paintings include Mansard Roof (1923), House by the Railroad (1925), Early Sunday Morning (1930), New York Movie (1939) and Office at Night (1940).