The Edward Hopper House: Founding, Achievement, Future
by Arthur H. Gunther
In 1967, as the long, creative life of Edward Hopper was nearing its end and his mortal remains would soon face the great Hudson River light from atop Oak Hill, the famed American realist painter’s Nyack birthplace was also tired and worn and awaiting its own rebirth.
Born in his mother Elizabeth Smith’s family home on July 22, 1882, Hopper lived at 53 North Broadway (now 82) until 1910, when he moved to New York City and began his artistic life there. On occasion, he would return to Nyack to see his mother, father Garret and sister Marion but would never again live in the waterfront village that surely informed his life and art. Nyack’s inflected light, the sharp geometry it leaves on brick buildings, the “sunlight on the wall” of many Victorian homes, the proportions among the business district’s buildings, its factories, its housing - all were in the daily view of an artistically gifted young man. Even a tiny paint box, found in his home after his passing, would be labeled with the prediction: “Would-Be Artist.”
In the later 1800s, Nyack was maturing as a northeast town on a river of commerce and a train ride away from New York City. Main Street and Broadway businesses, fine and ordinary homes, factories, shipyards, lumberyards, newspapers, telephones, piped gas, electricity and expansion in every way and every direction brought progress, tempered by national recessions, yes, but steady progress overall. John DeWint Smith and Elizabeth Griffiths Smith, Hopper’s maternal grandparents, built their North Broadway home in 1858, the house in which their daughter Elizabeth married Garret Hopper in 1879. Marion would be born in 1880, Edward in 1882. A sizable addition would be added that year as well as indoor plumbing and gas lighting.
As young Edward walked to early schooling on Marion Street, then to the Liberty Street School behind South Broadway, past his father’s dry goods store, he could not but notice all the building going on in the downtown proper, as well as Victorian housing rising in such “developments” as the Laveta Place block. Almost every morning, sunlight hit the walls of those facades and also ran up Second Avenue straight into Edward’s upstair’s bedroom. He would embrace it, as well as the luminosity off the Hudson as he sat on the rocks adjacent to Gedney Street dreaming of boats.
Each day, the young boy, then the growing man, would leave his home or return to it, walk to town, to school, to the Baptist Church that his great-grandfather founded, sometimes with sketchbook in hand, most times quietly taking in the architecture and the light and its shadows, all future material for the constant, lifelong gestation of an introspective person’s art. The North Broadway home was itself a constant source of artistic spirit for young Edward, with his mother, father and sister encouraging his ability. The year 1899 brought graduation from Nyack High School, and for a decade after that, art school in New York City, trips to Paris to study the masters and the eventual leave-taking of his birth community to mature as an artist in New York City, with painting summers in New England. The family home would be left to his parents and his sister and in time to Marion alone, with Hopper and his wife the artist Josephine Nivison visiting infrequently.
The decades were not kind to the Hopper family home. Marion would be seen in later years with her cats sitting on the front porch, the wisteria as well-rooted as the family. She died in 1965, Edward in 1967 and Jo in 1968, and the house became a boarded-up, sad thing. It might have been demolished in Nyack’s advancing urban renewal were it not for a small but strongly willed local group aware of Edward Hopper’s worldwide fame and his historic home, determined to rescue it as an art center in his name.
Most important in the early effort were Jeffrey and Barbara Arnold, who lived behind the Hopper home in one of the two properties previously owned by the Hopper family. They wrote letters and talked with people about saving the house for about a year before sending out a call to form a committee. Gertrude Dahlberg was the first to respond and was very helpful. Then Tyna Mansfield of Tappan, who had fine connections. Joseph McDowell of the Nyack High School Art Department, folksinger and Nyack businesswoman Susan Reed, artist and environmentalist Alan Gussow and historian Ralph Braden were next. Robert Kassel offered pro bono legal services. Art publisher Robert Minichiello also volunteered early. These people formed the Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Committee, with Jeffrey Arnold the first president and Barbara the first secretary.
A major volunteer undertaking was launched, with strong community support from such individuals as John Kant, the architect and historian Winston Perry Jr., Stephen Leeman, Sterling Norris, William and Dorothea Hope, Ruth Diebold, Fritz Krieger, John Moment, Mike Delia, Robert and Jeanne Nelson, David Levy of the Parsons School of Design and the J. William Clarks. They set out to restore the Hopper home, incorporating it as the non-profit Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Foundation. Funds were finally raised for purchase, and, a strong, vital and constant effort was led by Perry to restore the house. He truly was the construction leader, his profession and interest in history a combined force. Much hands-on work was accomplished by many sweating individual volunteers, by the Rotary Club of Nyack (especially Ed Gaudy, A.D. McLeod and former Nyack High School Principal A.W. Rittershausen), by the Nyack High School Environmental Club, by the Friends of the Nyacks and by Rockland Community College. Win and Philip Fey of RCC’s Continuing Education Department combined education, work experience, volunteerism and community spirit through a novel course, the “Hopper House Project,” a 1974 tuition-free offering that had participants gathering twice a week at Hopper House to fulfill a “call to learning and service.” Supported by professional carpenters, electricians, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, plumbers, the Benjamin Moore paint company, roofer Al Turk and Rockland County Cooperative Extension, repairs and upgrades were made to the historic home and grounds. Local businesses donated labor and materials. Elected leaders, such as the late Assemblyman Eugene Levy and and Nyack Mayor Alex Caglione, secured grants and cut through red tape.
The New York State Historic Trust also became involved as well as the Council on the Arts. Hopper House was designated a state historic landmark. Media support was plentiful, with news and feature stories, letters and editorials in Rockland, Bergen County and New York City newspapers. A major contributor to publicity on the rescue and rebuilding of Hopper House was Virginia Parkhurst, Nyack’s longtime local reporter, who long wrote for the original Journal-News. Publicity was vital since Edward Hopper was not well known beyond the art world at the time of his death, nor had the time yet come, as it has today, for a deep appreciation of his distinctly American realist art. Indeed, most of those interested in saving the house were artists. Aiding in the publicity, too, was Betty Lee of the Hudson River Valley Commission. The Commission included the Hopper House in a booklet it published about cultural sites in the Hudson Valley.
As Hopper House was secured and made to sparkle with fresh paint, a working heating system, safe electricity and functioning plumbing, the gallery rooms and outdoor garden soon became home to one fine exhibition after another. But not before a major fund-raising event was held in Nyack in January-February 1972, at the former Orange and Rockland Utilities showroom, then Presidential Life. Twenty Edward Hopper oils, watercolors and drawings on loan from the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City were displayed.
Early shows at Hopper House included the first exhibition, of Edwin Dahlberg watercolors, on April 13, 1975, followed by a photographic display featuring famed documentarian Walker Evans, the paintings of Jasper Cropsey and Joseph Cornell, costume exhibits, sculpture, ethnic paintings, still life, lectures and other events. In 1979, “The Boyhood World of Edward Hopper” was staged, with young Edward’s drawings and Hopper family memorabilia shown through the generosity of the Rev. Arthayer R. Sanborn, once pastor of the Nyack Baptist Church, who had become friends with Hopper in later years and who would spend the rest of his own life cataloguing Hopper works and stressing the artist’s importance. The Whitney Museum assisted, as did Alan Gussow and Hopper historian Gail Levin.
Over the years Hopper House has continued its fine exhibitions, remaining true to its mission as a venue for the arts, in memory of America’s greatest realist artist. In 1996, a show of 25 artists in honor of Hopper House’s 25th anniversary was organized by Paula Madawick, the then executive director, curated by Richard Milazzo. “Realism After Seven A.M., Realist Painting After Edward Hopper,” was well received and demonstrated the continuing sophistication and maturing of Hopper House. A jazz series (“Music in the Garden”) was added, crafted by Bert and Chris Hughes and Ray Wright, with performances by leading musicians, which continues to this day. Drawing classes were begun, an echo of young Hopper, who returned from New York Saturdays to conduct classes in the house.
In 1971-72, the New York Telephone Company honored Nyack’s native son by placing “Early Sunday Morning” on the cover of the Rockland directory. Some say Hopper added to his “gestation” of the New York scene with earlier sketches of similar brick-front facades on South Broadway, Nyack, and on Broadway in Haverstraw.
Hopper House has been guided through the seasons by Executive Directors Madawick, Pat Dennis, Cathy Shiga Gattullo and Carole Perry, all of whom have left a unique artistic direction and stamp on the art center. Many boards of trustees have sat, pondered and taken action through the decades to assure quality shows and to maintain the art center. They have also staffed the house on weekends, beginning with Trustee Gladys Neuman. The house and grounds long have had their own hands-on benefactor in Lynn Saaby, who takes to heart every scratch on the wall, each brick with missing mortar.
Finally, the many artists, lecturers and performers who have graced Hopper House with their wonderful work have in themselves been preservationists of the art center.
What’s the future of the Edward Hopper House? Current Director Perry notes, “When I first became the Executive Director of Edward Hopper House in 2006, I was struck by all that had been accomplished since its founding in 1971. Carefully curated exhibits with impressive catalogues have been produced on shoestring budgets. The selflessness that the trustees and volunteers have displayed in creating a community resource while keeping Edward Hopper's legacy alive has been an inspiration. Since those first trustees gave of their time and energy to save Hopper House, many more have followed. As a primarily working board, the running of Hopper House has truly been a collaborative effort. Struggles to keep the programming at a high level have been had over the years as funds waned, active trustees retired and empty seats waited to be filled. But always the mission has been supported by a core group of loyal trustees, and an equally loyal membership.
“Recent years have seen a renewed energy and commitment on the part of trustees, which has allowed us to revisit our mission as the keepers of Edward Hopper's childhood home and legacy while supporting artists of today. The 40th anniversary of Edward Hopper House Art Center has provided an opportunity to highlight the impact that Hopper's years in Nyack had on his development as an artist. To do that, the Board of Trustees has given its all to prepare the house for the resulting exhibition, ‘Edward Hopper, Prelude: The Nyack Years.’ I believe we all recognize the significance of ‘bringing Hopper home’ in this way. Now that the house has been refurbished through the generosity of so many, the high standards of programming that prompted it will continue with a focus on the artist who made this all possible, the village that made him who he is, and the artists of today who continue to express the ‘inner life in the artist,’ just as Edward Hopper did so many years ago.”
The great heritage of so much service by so many Founders, volunteers, staff and trustees offers guidance as the art center created in Edward Hopper’s name continues to thrive. None of the accomplishments would have been possible, nor would the future be of promise without the Founders and those who have followed.
Edward Hopper House thanks them all.
This article was written by Arthur H. Gunther, Hopper House trustee, with assistance from Winston Perry Jr. of the Historical Society of the Nyacks and Bert Hughes, Edward Hopper House Trustee (2011)
Born in his mother Elizabeth Smith’s family home on July 22, 1882, Hopper lived at 53 North Broadway (now 82) until 1910, when he moved to New York City and began his artistic life there. On occasion, he would return to Nyack to see his mother, father Garret and sister Marion but would never again live in the waterfront village that surely informed his life and art. Nyack’s inflected light, the sharp geometry it leaves on brick buildings, the “sunlight on the wall” of many Victorian homes, the proportions among the business district’s buildings, its factories, its housing - all were in the daily view of an artistically gifted young man. Even a tiny paint box, found in his home after his passing, would be labeled with the prediction: “Would-Be Artist.”
In the later 1800s, Nyack was maturing as a northeast town on a river of commerce and a train ride away from New York City. Main Street and Broadway businesses, fine and ordinary homes, factories, shipyards, lumberyards, newspapers, telephones, piped gas, electricity and expansion in every way and every direction brought progress, tempered by national recessions, yes, but steady progress overall. John DeWint Smith and Elizabeth Griffiths Smith, Hopper’s maternal grandparents, built their North Broadway home in 1858, the house in which their daughter Elizabeth married Garret Hopper in 1879. Marion would be born in 1880, Edward in 1882. A sizable addition would be added that year as well as indoor plumbing and gas lighting.
As young Edward walked to early schooling on Marion Street, then to the Liberty Street School behind South Broadway, past his father’s dry goods store, he could not but notice all the building going on in the downtown proper, as well as Victorian housing rising in such “developments” as the Laveta Place block. Almost every morning, sunlight hit the walls of those facades and also ran up Second Avenue straight into Edward’s upstair’s bedroom. He would embrace it, as well as the luminosity off the Hudson as he sat on the rocks adjacent to Gedney Street dreaming of boats.
Each day, the young boy, then the growing man, would leave his home or return to it, walk to town, to school, to the Baptist Church that his great-grandfather founded, sometimes with sketchbook in hand, most times quietly taking in the architecture and the light and its shadows, all future material for the constant, lifelong gestation of an introspective person’s art. The North Broadway home was itself a constant source of artistic spirit for young Edward, with his mother, father and sister encouraging his ability. The year 1899 brought graduation from Nyack High School, and for a decade after that, art school in New York City, trips to Paris to study the masters and the eventual leave-taking of his birth community to mature as an artist in New York City, with painting summers in New England. The family home would be left to his parents and his sister and in time to Marion alone, with Hopper and his wife the artist Josephine Nivison visiting infrequently.
The decades were not kind to the Hopper family home. Marion would be seen in later years with her cats sitting on the front porch, the wisteria as well-rooted as the family. She died in 1965, Edward in 1967 and Jo in 1968, and the house became a boarded-up, sad thing. It might have been demolished in Nyack’s advancing urban renewal were it not for a small but strongly willed local group aware of Edward Hopper’s worldwide fame and his historic home, determined to rescue it as an art center in his name.
Most important in the early effort were Jeffrey and Barbara Arnold, who lived behind the Hopper home in one of the two properties previously owned by the Hopper family. They wrote letters and talked with people about saving the house for about a year before sending out a call to form a committee. Gertrude Dahlberg was the first to respond and was very helpful. Then Tyna Mansfield of Tappan, who had fine connections. Joseph McDowell of the Nyack High School Art Department, folksinger and Nyack businesswoman Susan Reed, artist and environmentalist Alan Gussow and historian Ralph Braden were next. Robert Kassel offered pro bono legal services. Art publisher Robert Minichiello also volunteered early. These people formed the Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Committee, with Jeffrey Arnold the first president and Barbara the first secretary.
A major volunteer undertaking was launched, with strong community support from such individuals as John Kant, the architect and historian Winston Perry Jr., Stephen Leeman, Sterling Norris, William and Dorothea Hope, Ruth Diebold, Fritz Krieger, John Moment, Mike Delia, Robert and Jeanne Nelson, David Levy of the Parsons School of Design and the J. William Clarks. They set out to restore the Hopper home, incorporating it as the non-profit Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Foundation. Funds were finally raised for purchase, and, a strong, vital and constant effort was led by Perry to restore the house. He truly was the construction leader, his profession and interest in history a combined force. Much hands-on work was accomplished by many sweating individual volunteers, by the Rotary Club of Nyack (especially Ed Gaudy, A.D. McLeod and former Nyack High School Principal A.W. Rittershausen), by the Nyack High School Environmental Club, by the Friends of the Nyacks and by Rockland Community College. Win and Philip Fey of RCC’s Continuing Education Department combined education, work experience, volunteerism and community spirit through a novel course, the “Hopper House Project,” a 1974 tuition-free offering that had participants gathering twice a week at Hopper House to fulfill a “call to learning and service.” Supported by professional carpenters, electricians, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, plumbers, the Benjamin Moore paint company, roofer Al Turk and Rockland County Cooperative Extension, repairs and upgrades were made to the historic home and grounds. Local businesses donated labor and materials. Elected leaders, such as the late Assemblyman Eugene Levy and and Nyack Mayor Alex Caglione, secured grants and cut through red tape.
The New York State Historic Trust also became involved as well as the Council on the Arts. Hopper House was designated a state historic landmark. Media support was plentiful, with news and feature stories, letters and editorials in Rockland, Bergen County and New York City newspapers. A major contributor to publicity on the rescue and rebuilding of Hopper House was Virginia Parkhurst, Nyack’s longtime local reporter, who long wrote for the original Journal-News. Publicity was vital since Edward Hopper was not well known beyond the art world at the time of his death, nor had the time yet come, as it has today, for a deep appreciation of his distinctly American realist art. Indeed, most of those interested in saving the house were artists. Aiding in the publicity, too, was Betty Lee of the Hudson River Valley Commission. The Commission included the Hopper House in a booklet it published about cultural sites in the Hudson Valley.
As Hopper House was secured and made to sparkle with fresh paint, a working heating system, safe electricity and functioning plumbing, the gallery rooms and outdoor garden soon became home to one fine exhibition after another. But not before a major fund-raising event was held in Nyack in January-February 1972, at the former Orange and Rockland Utilities showroom, then Presidential Life. Twenty Edward Hopper oils, watercolors and drawings on loan from the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City were displayed.
Early shows at Hopper House included the first exhibition, of Edwin Dahlberg watercolors, on April 13, 1975, followed by a photographic display featuring famed documentarian Walker Evans, the paintings of Jasper Cropsey and Joseph Cornell, costume exhibits, sculpture, ethnic paintings, still life, lectures and other events. In 1979, “The Boyhood World of Edward Hopper” was staged, with young Edward’s drawings and Hopper family memorabilia shown through the generosity of the Rev. Arthayer R. Sanborn, once pastor of the Nyack Baptist Church, who had become friends with Hopper in later years and who would spend the rest of his own life cataloguing Hopper works and stressing the artist’s importance. The Whitney Museum assisted, as did Alan Gussow and Hopper historian Gail Levin.
Over the years Hopper House has continued its fine exhibitions, remaining true to its mission as a venue for the arts, in memory of America’s greatest realist artist. In 1996, a show of 25 artists in honor of Hopper House’s 25th anniversary was organized by Paula Madawick, the then executive director, curated by Richard Milazzo. “Realism After Seven A.M., Realist Painting After Edward Hopper,” was well received and demonstrated the continuing sophistication and maturing of Hopper House. A jazz series (“Music in the Garden”) was added, crafted by Bert and Chris Hughes and Ray Wright, with performances by leading musicians, which continues to this day. Drawing classes were begun, an echo of young Hopper, who returned from New York Saturdays to conduct classes in the house.
In 1971-72, the New York Telephone Company honored Nyack’s native son by placing “Early Sunday Morning” on the cover of the Rockland directory. Some say Hopper added to his “gestation” of the New York scene with earlier sketches of similar brick-front facades on South Broadway, Nyack, and on Broadway in Haverstraw.
Hopper House has been guided through the seasons by Executive Directors Madawick, Pat Dennis, Cathy Shiga Gattullo and Carole Perry, all of whom have left a unique artistic direction and stamp on the art center. Many boards of trustees have sat, pondered and taken action through the decades to assure quality shows and to maintain the art center. They have also staffed the house on weekends, beginning with Trustee Gladys Neuman. The house and grounds long have had their own hands-on benefactor in Lynn Saaby, who takes to heart every scratch on the wall, each brick with missing mortar.
Finally, the many artists, lecturers and performers who have graced Hopper House with their wonderful work have in themselves been preservationists of the art center.
What’s the future of the Edward Hopper House? Current Director Perry notes, “When I first became the Executive Director of Edward Hopper House in 2006, I was struck by all that had been accomplished since its founding in 1971. Carefully curated exhibits with impressive catalogues have been produced on shoestring budgets. The selflessness that the trustees and volunteers have displayed in creating a community resource while keeping Edward Hopper's legacy alive has been an inspiration. Since those first trustees gave of their time and energy to save Hopper House, many more have followed. As a primarily working board, the running of Hopper House has truly been a collaborative effort. Struggles to keep the programming at a high level have been had over the years as funds waned, active trustees retired and empty seats waited to be filled. But always the mission has been supported by a core group of loyal trustees, and an equally loyal membership.
“Recent years have seen a renewed energy and commitment on the part of trustees, which has allowed us to revisit our mission as the keepers of Edward Hopper's childhood home and legacy while supporting artists of today. The 40th anniversary of Edward Hopper House Art Center has provided an opportunity to highlight the impact that Hopper's years in Nyack had on his development as an artist. To do that, the Board of Trustees has given its all to prepare the house for the resulting exhibition, ‘Edward Hopper, Prelude: The Nyack Years.’ I believe we all recognize the significance of ‘bringing Hopper home’ in this way. Now that the house has been refurbished through the generosity of so many, the high standards of programming that prompted it will continue with a focus on the artist who made this all possible, the village that made him who he is, and the artists of today who continue to express the ‘inner life in the artist,’ just as Edward Hopper did so many years ago.”
The great heritage of so much service by so many Founders, volunteers, staff and trustees offers guidance as the art center created in Edward Hopper’s name continues to thrive. None of the accomplishments would have been possible, nor would the future be of promise without the Founders and those who have followed.
Edward Hopper House thanks them all.
This article was written by Arthur H. Gunther, Hopper House trustee, with assistance from Winston Perry Jr. of the Historical Society of the Nyacks and Bert Hughes, Edward Hopper House Trustee (2011)
