Let’s Go to the Museum! Writing Challenge #2

Monthly Writing Challenge

For this challenge, you will write an original poem, blog post or brief story using a prompt of a painting, sculpture, drawing, photography or art exhibit which I’ll provide each month. You will have a month to post your poem/story on this blog. You can also post your challenge responses on your own website or blog if you link back to my blog. Read and comment on others’ writing. Get feedback. There is the possibility of being included in a literary journal that I’m starting. I opened my own publishing company. Bookplaces Publishing website will be finished soon.

Automat, 1927 by Edward Hopper

Automat was first displayed on Valentine’s Day 1927 at the opening of Hopper’s second solo show, at the Rehn Galleries in New York. By April it had been sold for $1,200. The painting is today owned by the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.
The painting portrays a lone woman staring into a cup of coffee in an Automat at night. The reflection of identical rows of light fixtures stretches out through the night-blackened window.
Hopper’s wife, Jo, served as the model for the woman. However, Hopper altered her face to make her younger (Jo was 44 in 1927). He also altered her figure; Jo was a curvy, full-figured woman, while one critic has described the woman in the painting as “‘boyish’ (that is, flat-chested)”.
She has removed only one glove, which may indicate either that she is distracted, that she is in a hurry and can stop only for a moment, or simply that she has just come in from outside, and has not yet warmed up. But the latter possibility seems unlikely, for there is a small empty plate on the table, in front of her cup and saucer, suggesting that she may have eaten a snack and been sitting at this spot for some time.
Hopper would make the crossed legs of a female subject the brightest spot on an otherwise dark canvas in a number of later paintings, including Compartment C, Car (1938) and Hotel Lobby (1943). The female subject of his 1931 painting Barber Shop is also in a pose similar to the woman in Automat, and the viewer’s image of her is similarly bisected by a table. But the placing of the subject in a bright, populated place, at midday, makes the woman less isolated and vulnerable, and hence the viewer’s gaze seems less intrusive.  As is, often the case in Hopper’s paintings, both the woman’s circumstances and her mood are ambiguous. She is well-dressed and is wearing makeup, which could indicate either that she is on her way to or from work at a job where personal appearance is important, or that she is on her way to or from a social occasion.

Edward Hopper, 1937

Bio

Born: July 22, 1882, Nyack, New York, United States

Died: May 15, 1967 (age 84 years), Washington Square North, New York, United States

Periods: Realism, Impressionism, Modern art, Ashcan School

Spouse: Josephine Hopper (m. 1924–1967)

Education: Parsons School of Design

Known for: Painting

Movement: Realism

Notable Works

Automat (1927)

Chop Suey (1929)

Nighthawks (1942)

Office in a Small City (1953)

Artist’s Statement

Hopper’s most systematic declaration of his philosophy as an artist was given in a handwritten note, titled “Statement”, submitted in 1953 to the journal Reality:

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception. The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design. The term life used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it. Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature’s phenomena before it can again become great. “

Edward Hopper was born in Nyack, New York, a town located on the west side of the Hudson River, to a middle-class family that encouraged his artistic abilities. After graduating from high school, he studied briefly at the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York City (1899–1900), and then he enrolled in classes at the New York School of Art (1900–1906). In his shift from illustration to the fine arts, he studied with William Merritt Chase, a leading American Impressionist painter, and with Robert Henri, who exhorted his students to paint the everyday conditions of their own world in a realistic manner. His classmates at the school included George Bellows, Guy Pène du Bois, and Rockwell Kent.

After working as an illustrator for a short time, Hopper made three trips abroad: first to Paris and various locations across Europe (1906–7), a second trip to Paris (1909), and a short visit to Paris and Spain the following year (1910). Although he had little interest in the vanguard developments of Fauvism or Cubism, he developed an enduring attachment to the work of Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet, whose compositional devices and depictions of modern urban life would influence him for years to come.

Hopper’s work, spanning oil paintings, watercolors, and etchings, predominantly explores themes of loneliness and isolation within American urban and rural settings. His most famous painting, “Nighthawks” (1942), epitomizes his interest in the quiet, introspective moments of everyday life. Despite a slow start, Hopper achieved significant recognition by the 1920s, with his work becoming a staple in major American museums. Hopper’s technique, marked by a composition of form and use of light to evoke mood, has been influential in the art world and popular culture. His paintings, often set in the architectural landscapes of New York or the serene environments of New England, convey a sense of narrative depth and emotional resonance, making him a pivotal figure in American Realism. Hopper created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects layered with a poetic meaning, inviting narrative interpretations. He was praised for “complete verity” in the America he portrayed.

Works Cited

Edward Hopper and His Paintings, edwardhopper.net

Edward Hopper, “Statement.” Published as a part of “Statements by Four Artists” in Reality, vol. 1, no. 1 (spring 1953). Hopper’s handwritten draft is reproduced in Levin, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, p. 461.

Murphy, Jessica. “Edward Hopper (1882–1967).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan  (June 2007). http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hopp/hd_hopp.htm