By Paul Varnell

Contributing writer

Arguably the most important American artist of the first half of the 20th century, Edward Hopper (1882-1966) has been claimed as a precursor of styles as varied as modern representationalism, abstraction, pop art and photo-realism.

No doubt there is something in Hopper for each of them to claim, but he described his work as realist and sometimes linked himself to surrealists such as de Chirico, Magritte, and Max Ernst. It seems to have been the sense of mystery those surrealists managed to infuse into their work that attracted him.

The new exhibition of more than 100 of Hopper’s works at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first major exhibition of his work in nearly a generation, gives viewers a chance to explore Hopper’s work for themselves.

Born in Nyack, N.Y., Hopper studied first with Robert Henri, a member of the so-called “Ashcan School” that emphasized capturing gritty social reality rather than prettified images. Subsequently he made three trips to Paris, where he absorbed some of the lessons of the impressionists, including their emphasis on light and color tonalities.

The exhibition includes a generous sampling of Hopper’s early watercolors, particularly of lighthouses and homes in seaside villages of Maine and Massachusetts, where he built a summer home on Cape Cod. These are not studies or sketches, but accomplished, finished works in themselves showing Hopper’s early interest in architecture and the play of light.

His early paintings also show the influence of impressionism, but over time he developed a harder-edged style that enabled him to emphasize the angles and differently illuminated planes of buildings. As his style developed, he liked to view buildings from above or below, the picture plane often sloping up to the left or right rather than being parallel to the bottom on the canvas.

Part of the appeal of Hopper’s work is its resistance to clear interpretation. Some paintings include no people, only buildings. Others include just one person, usually a woman, clothed or naked, sitting pensively. When there are two or more people, they do not seem to be interacting. Only three paintings seem to show anyone talking.

As with any large exhibition numerous paintings could be singled out but space allows for just a few that highlight his basic themes.

“Sunday” (1926) reflects Hopper’s interest in small-town as well as urban life. It depicts a man sitting meditatively on the curb of a small town’s wooden sidewalk outside a row of seemingly empty storefront windows. There are no other people in the picture—it is Sunday and there is no business. He is perhaps the owner of one of the stores. An open door to what is probably a staircase suggests that he lives above one of the stores and has come down to get some air.

“Automat” (1927) is a particularly attractive painting of a nicely dressed woman sitting alone and drinking a cup of coffee near the entrance of one of those once-popular self-serve restaurants. Behind her a large dark window reflects only the overhead lights of the automat. As with many of Hopper’s people you naturally wonder how to interpret her mood. But part of Hopper’s appeal is his elusiveness. Hopper was often said to be painting lonely people, but he resisted that interpretation, saying, “The loneliness thing has been overdone.” More often, people seem to be lost in their own reveries while waiting for someone or something.

“Gas” (1940). Here an inconspicuous man attends to three 1930s-era gas pumps that bisect the picture while light streams out from the station’s small office. It is dusk and the man may be closing down the station for the night. There is no traffic on the road to the left. Hopper’s inclusion of brand names—here Mobil, elsewhere Esso, Ex-Lax, Phillies cigars—is one of the features critics point to in viewing him as a precursor of pop art.

“New York Movie” (1939) is dimly lit and a little hard to see. But it depicts an attractive young usherette standing off to the right beside stairs leading to the balcony, lost in her own thoughts, while the left side of the painting focuses on the more distant front of the theater and the movie screen. We can see only a single man viewing the movie. Hopper was fond of simultaneous near-and-far views that allowed him to play with contrasts. Often the distant—or at least contrasting—view is through a window.

“Nighthawks” (1942), or as we might say “night owls,” is without doubt Hopper’s most famous painting and which Hopper said was, “one of the very best things I have ever painted.” (A huge blowup of the painting greets visitors as they enter the exhibition.) It was snapped up for the Art Institute’s permanent collection shortly after it was painted. It depicts the inside of an all-night Greenwich Village diner, a “clean well-lighted place,” populated by three patrons and an employee. On the left is the empty street beyond, dimly lit by moonlight or an invisible streetlamp. The man and woman, each lost in their own thoughts, seem to be a couple, although whether in life or just for the night is not clear. As usual, there is ambiguity about the people’s relationships.

Trying to express his artistic intentions, Hopper once told an interviewer, “What I wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a house.” “Sun in an Empty Room” (1963), one of his very last paintings, comes very close to doing exactly that, although inside a house rather than outside. The painting is remarkably austere. Sunlight shines on two barren walls and the floor. The window shows a bit of greenery outside, the only other bit of color. That is all. It is the shades of yellow that attract the eye—the bright sunlit areas, the areas more dimly lit by reflected light from the floor and the still darker areas that seem to receive almost no reflected light. The sunlight shining on the window frame seems almost pure white to contrast with the shades of yellow.

The Hopper exhibition is combined with one of watercolors by Winslow Homer. That will be reviewed in an upcoming issue.

(More images can be viewed at the Chicago Free Press website at www.chicagofreepress.com.)

“Edward Hopper,” at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., an exhibition of more than 100 watercolors, prints and oil paintings Hopper produced between 1908 and 1963. The show runs through May 10.