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

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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. Edward Hopper’s New York is the first exhibition of its kind to focus on the artist’s rich and sustained relationship with the city that served as the subject, setting, and inspiration for so many of his most celebrated and persistently vexing pictures. The survey will take a comprehensive look at Hopper’s life and work through his depictions of the city—from his early impressions in sketches, prints, and illustrations, to his late paintings, in which New York 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 such as Automat (1927), Early Sunday Morning (1930), Room in New York (1932), New York Movie (1939), and Morning Sun (1952), as well as several lesser-known yet critically important examples including the artist's watercolors of downtown New York and his painting November, Washington Square (1932/1958). 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. 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.

Edward Hopper’s New York is curated by Kim Conaty, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, with Melinda Lang, Senior Curatorial Assistant.