Edward Hopper: A Life

A major reassessment of an iconic artist that reveals new insight into his biography and his work Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is one of America’s defining artists. His iconic images of twentieth-century American life have become fixtures in our cultural landscape: mute strangers nursing drinks in lonely all-night diners; emotionally estranged couples frozen in desolate silence; solitary figures gazing out of windows into blinding sunlight. Hopper’s realism, often depicting the everyday lives of modern Americans, has achieved a timeless resonance, yet the man behind the art is still little understood, shrouded in myth. Edward Hopper: A Life reexamines the standard view of this renowned artist by interweaving his life and work and vividly reconstructing the personal, cultural, historical, and political contexts of his time. Using major new archives and a wealth of newly discovered sources, Louis Shadwick presents the richest and most complete story of Hopper’s life and art to date, revealing new dimensions to an artist whose carefully wrought identity has never been fully unraveled. Tracing Hopper’s career over three stages—from youth to obscurity to fame—Shadwick draws new connections between his art and hotly contested ideas of American identity and the American dream. His biography also focuses on the personal conflicts that shaped the artist, from childhood to his turbulent relationship with his wife, the painter Josephine Nivison Hopper. Josephine’s voluminous records of her life with Edward – many presented here for the first time – paint a picture of a marriage riven by resentment and rivalry, yet also defined by an enduring devotion. In returning Hopper’s work to the rich contexts of its making, Edward Hopper: A Life promises to transform understandings of this seminal artist. With more than 100 color and black-and-white images, this book presents the definitive story of Hopper’s life and work.