Project 2: Edward Hopper 's Introduction

Edward Hopper, born in Nyack, New York, to a middle class family, Hopper studied at the New York School of Art for seven years beginning in 1900. He eventually gained a great deal from the classes he took with Robert Henri, one of the major figures of American Realism (the so-called “Ashcan School”) and, politically, an anarchist. Hopper made several extended trips abroad toward the end of that decade and came under the influence of French and European literature and culture, but claimed to be unaware of and unaffected by Modernist art work (Picasso and others).Before he gained recognition as an artist who had something significant to say, Hopper’s paintings were largely ignored. He worked as a commercial illustrator, also selling prints and watercolors, unable to make his first sale of a painting to a public institution until 1923. Not until he was more than 40 did Hopper enjoy success. He sold every painting from his second solo show, in 1924, around the time he first married.

Reference: J. Cooper, American painter Edward Hopper in Chicago, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/hopp-m22.shtml