Edward Hopper & Cape Ann in Gloucester

 

Edward Hopper & Cape Ann: Coming Home

Cape Ann Museum

Gloucester, MA

Through October 16, 2023

 

Edward Hopper is certainly one of the most iconic American painters of the 20^th century. Even if the titles don’t ring immediate bells, Hopper works such as Nighthawks (1940), Chop Suey (1929), Automat (1929), and Early Sunday Morning (1930) are instantly recognizable. Hopper is recognized, with considerable merit, as the preeminent artist of ennui, anomie, and disconnection. He is famed for populating his canvases (if at all) with people who look at anything except each other or you the viewer. His career soared during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when many saw him a quintessential painter of the period’s gloom.

 

Hopper (1882-1967) considered himself a realist painter, a term that has little to do with being photographic or careful depictions of his surroundings. Realism is more a kind of truthfulness, an honest evocation of place, mood, or emotions (or lack thereof). “Eddie” Hopper was born into a strict Baptist family, grew into a rather gangly body, and never entirely cast off his family’s austere Dutch Protestantism. He studied with luminaries such as Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase, but like many budding artists, he struggled for a time. His first trip to Cape Ann–the North Shore in Massachusetts parlance–came in 1912, a veritable search for inspiration. Henri had told him to, “Forget about art and paint what interests you.” That was good advice, but he sold nothing at all until 1913 and his first breakthrough took another ten years. 

 

Josephine Nivison Hopper

 

In 1924, he married Josephine Nivison, also an artist. She proved an adroit booster, manager, and organizer of his career. The two stayed together though their marriage was often stormy and rumors of physical violence swirled. Her career never really took off but before anyone raises gender hackles, the few canvases displayed at the Cape Ann Museum suggest that she was a second-rate talent. When they revisited Cape Ann during the 1920s, his work was noticeably more dynamic than hers.

 

With an artist of such a profile as Hopper’s, it would be pretentious to say I disliked the show at the Cape Ann Museum (CAM). There is much I liked quite a lot, actually, but I was also underwhelmed. Like many artists, Hopper dabbled in various media, such as drawings, etchings, and lithographs. The CAM show is heavy on watercolors and most of them simply lack the poignancy and emotive power of his oils. This is particularly noticeable in its abundance of stand-alone houses. They are fine as documentation of fading styles for the well-heeled, but his oils often took a longer look and included people, dogs, fishermen, and landscape details that invite viewers to write our own narratives. Stripped of them, a grand house of bourgeois dwelling is precisely that and little more. 

 

 

 

 

In many respects, his views of railyards, empty streets, and down-market homes are much more intriguing. In this respect, he followed Henri’s admonition. Henri was a leading light of the Ashcan school of painting, which found more potency and vigor in work, struggle, and grit than in “pretty” things. Hopper as well, which is why his best known works impress more than they please. They are, insofar as Cape Ann is concerned, more “Gloucester,” a fishing town, than the lace, awnings, and graceful porches of elites.

 

Note Hopper's use of verticals and triangles

 

 

 Heres’ an admittedly idiosyncratic critique from a person who literally has trouble drawing a straight line with a ruler. To my eye Edward Hopper simply wasn’t as skilled at watercolors as he was with oils.

 None of this is to say that you should avoid the CAM show. It might be advisable, though, to tamp down your expectations. Another small detail you should know. Since nearly all the works are on loan, no photography of any sort is allowed in the exhibit. I’m sure this is in accordance with stipulations from the various lenders, but I wish the art world would simply stop the striptease. The no-photos horse left the barn a long time ago and you could go to where these paintings reside and photograph most of them in situ. Why not allow patrons small remembrances of their visit? 

 

My favorite. Note how Hopper folded eaves and rooftops into the boat sails!

 

Note: The Hopper images in this piece are taken from internet sources. They are low quality copies of copies, I don’t redistribute them, and I make exactly zero dollars from anything on this blog!