Edward Hopper’s New York
Oct 19, 2022–Mar 5, 2023

The city of New York was Edward Hopper’s home for nearly six decades (1908–67), a period that spans his entire mature career and coincides with a historic time of urban development. As skyscrapers punctuated the skyline and elevated trains and construction sites roared below, Hopper’s New York betrays only glimpses of the broader changes underfoot. His city was human-scale, decidedly non-iconic, and largely rooted in a past that had fallen out of step with the present; “I just never cared for the vertical,” Hopper reflected in 1956. This exhibition will be the first of its kind to focus on Hopper’s rich and sustained relationship with New York: how the city served as the subject, setting, and inspiration for so many of the artist’s most celebrated and persistently vexing pictures.

Edward Hopper’s New York will take a comprehensive look at Hopper’s life and work through his city pictures, from his early impressions of New York in sketches, prints, and illustrations, to his late paintings, in which the city served as a backdrop for his evocative distillations of urban experience. Drawing from the Whitney’s extensive holdings by the artist and amplified by key loans, the exhibition will bring together many of Hopper’s iconic city pictures as well as several lesser-known yet critically important examples. The presentation will be significantly informed by a variety of materials from the Museum’s recently acquired Sanborn Hopper Archive—printed ephemera, correspondence, photographs, and journals that together inspire new insights into Hopper’s life in the city. By exploring the artist’s work through the lens of New York, the exhibition offers a fresh take on this formidable figure and considers the city itself as a lead actor.

This exhibition is organized by Kim Conaty, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, with Melinda Lang, Senior Curatorial Assistant.

Edward Hopper's New York is sponsored by

This exhibition is also sponsored by

Generous support is provided by the Barbara Haskell American Fellows Legacy Fund.