Hopper’s Birthday: Thoughts on Approaching a City

(Left) Edward Hopper, Sunday, 1926, Oil on canvas 29 x 34 in.; 73.66 x 86.36 cm. Acquired 1926. Paintings, 0925, American. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC. (Right) Edward Hopper, Approaching a City, 1946, conte on paper, 15 1/16 c 22 1/8 in., Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bequest of Josephene N. Hopper, 70.869.

(Left) Edward Hopper, Sunday, 1926, Oil on canvas 29 x 34 in.; 73.66 x 86.36 cm. Acquired 1926. Paintings, 0925, American. The Phillips Collection, Washington DC. (Right) Edward Hopper, Approaching a City, 1946, conte on paper, 15 1/16 c 22 1/8 in., Collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bequest of Josephene N. Hopper, 70.869.

To learn more about this painting on the anniversary of Edward Hopper’s birth, below is an oral history transcript from the Archives of American Art in which Hopper was asked about what gives this work its intense feeling. See the painting on view in the Made in the USA show through August 31.

JOHN MORSE: Mr. Hopper, I’d like to ask you about one particular picture that made a great impression on me when I first saw it at the Whitney exhibition, and still does, although now it’s in the Duncan Phillips Collection in Washington. That’s Approaching a City, and I’m quite sure, or how I could put it into words, the particular appeal of this picture—maybe it’s impossible—but I would like to hear what you have to say about it.

EDWARD HOPPER: Well, I’ve always been interested in approaching a big city in a train, and I can’t exactly describe the sensations, but they’re entirely human and perhaps have nothing to do with aesthetics. There is a certain fear and anxiety and a great visual interest in the things that one sees coming into a great city. I think that’s about all I can say about it.

JOHN MORSE: Well, in painting this picture were you aware of these wonderful solid geometric forms that took my eye at once?

EDWARD HOPPER: Well, I suppose I was. I tried for those things more or less unintentionally.

JOHN MORSE: Would you go so far as to say it’s almost a subconscious result, effect?

EDWARD HOPPER: Yes, I think so.

JOHN MORSE: But what was in your mind when you were painting it, I gather then, was this feeling of approaching a city?

EDWARD HOPPER: Yes.

JOHN MORSE: Thank you.

From: Oral history interview with Edward Hopper, 1959 June 17, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-edward-hopper-11844

 

Meeting Lyonel Feininger

Lyonel Feininger, Waterfront, 1942. Watercolor and black ink on paper, 11 1/2 x 18 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

I hadn’t heard of the artist Lyonel Feininger until I opened the New York Times to see Roberta Smith’s review of the Whitney exhibition, Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World.

Smith brings up what we’re all thinking when we look at the works in the exhibition: the whimsy and color of Chagall, expressiveness of Kandinsky, and maybe even a little Tim Burton meets Pinocchio.

It’s discoveries like this one that inspire me to learn more.

In fact, my colleagues in the library and in conservation pointed out that the Phillips has several works by Feininger. I met our librarian Karen Schneider in the galleries adjacent to our Kandinsky exhibition, hung with expressionist works, to view four beautiful watercolors by the artist. Our conservation fellow Patti Favero then took me backstage (i.e. to storage) to view one of two paintings we have by Feininger, Spook I (pictured below). There’s something adorably amusing about the little jack-o-lantern-like figures with top hats dancing about in the painting. Even the trees seem to be wearing witches hats.

When the leaves begin to change and the weather cools I’ll head to New York to experience the Whitney exhibition. You can, too: At the Edge of the World is on view through October 16 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Megan Clark, Manager of Center Initiatives

Lyonel Feininger, Spook I, 1940. Oil on canvas, 21 x 21 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.