Portal: The Window in American Photography

Wednesday, January 8 - Sunday, April 27, 2025

Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center is pleased to present the exhibition, PORTAL: THE WINDOW IN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY, featuring twenty three images by seventeen nationally and globally esteemed photographers drawn from the collection of the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY.

This exhibition of gelatin silver prints and color photographs date from the late 1920s to early 2000s. Collectively, they reveal how photographers employ a window as a pictorial device to frame and anchor each image and, technically and theoretically, as a recognizable transparent space, or threshold, between figures on each side. The featured photographers are:

William Anderson (American, 1932-2019),
Toren Beasley (American, b. 1957),
Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Me1902-2002),
Richard Buswell (American, b. 1945),
Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023),
Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975),
Florence Henri (Swiss, 1893-1982),
Jay Jaffee (American, 1921-1999),
Simpson Kalisher (American, b. 1926),
Barbara Karant (American, b. 1952),
Roger Mertin (American, 1942-2001),
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991),
Pete Turner (American, 1934-2017),
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953),
Minor White (American, 1908-1976),
Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)

Despite the differences between the images, the photographers in this exhibition — and painter Edward Hopper (1882-1967) — share an exploration of the storytelling capabilities of a simple aperture. Whether open to the elements or enclosed by glass, glimpsed in person or through a viewfinder, windows are portals to and from other real and imagined worlds.

Minor White (American, 1908-1976), "Windowsill Daydreaming," 1958, Gelatin silver print, Collection Everson Museum of Art, Museum Purchase; PC 89.24, Rights courtesy, Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, gift of David H. McAlpin, Class of 1920, © Trustees of Princeton University

The images on view reveal how the photographers employ the window as a portal that extends the viewer an invitation into the space and provides visual access to something beyond the physical and emotional reach of the frame. Minor White and Elliott Erwitt see the window as a framing device, using it to border the pictorial composition. Others, like Pete Turner and Carrie Mae Weems, transform windows into alluring architectural features. Florence Henri’s and Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s windows present a surrealist escape, while photographers Walker Evans, William Anderson, Aaron Siskind and Barbara Karant use windows to provide a view into the lives of their subjects.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902-2002), "Parabola Optica," 1974, Gelatin silver print, Collection Everson Museum of Art, Museum purchase; PC 76.39.1

Barbara Karant (American, b. 1952), "Untitled." 1978, Color photograph Collection Everson Museum of Art, gift of Mr. Robert Abrams; PC 84.26.6

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975), "Political Poster;" Plate VI. 1929-31, Gelatin silver print, Collection Everson Museum of Art, Museum purchase; PC 75.39

At the Edward Hopper House Museum, PORTAL is supplemented by an installation of original works on paper by Edward Hopper, on loan from private collectors; several are studies for major paintings such as Sunday (1926, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC), Hotel by the Railroad (1952, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC), and Woman in the Sun (1961, Whitney Museum of American Art).

Edward Hopper, "Sunday" 1926, Oil on canvas, Phillips Collection, Washington , DC.

Edward Hopper, "Hotel by Railroad" 1952, Oil on canvas, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966

Edward Hopper "A Woman in the Sun" 1961 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 50th Anniversary Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hackett in honor of Edith and Lloyd Goodrich

In these and other major canvases, Hopper employs this common and universal design element as a pictorial device to create spatial tension, with, to quote scholar Gail Levin, “the window as a symbol of the expansive world beyond the cramped interior.” This is in accord with the essential beliefs and theories of Hopper’s influential teacher, painter Robert Henri, who in The Art Spirit (1923) states: “The look of a wall or a window is a look into time and space. Windows are symbols. They are openings in. The wall carries its history. What we seek is not the moment alone.”

Edward Hopper, "Early Sunday Morning" 1930, Oil on canvas, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Aaron Siskind (1903-1991), American, "Facade, Unoccupied Building," 1937, Gelatin silver print, Collection Everson Museum of Art, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Donald Baxter; PC 82.20.

Hopper was preoccupied with the window throughout his career, with his characters often seen through the window’s vertical and horizontal framework and from the darkness of their surroundings. “As a youth in Nyack, Hopper experienced strong rays of morning light stream in through his east facing bedroom-studio windows,” says Kathleen Bennewitz. “Perhaps such memories led him to employ the window as a source of light transforming the mood of the setting, just as the images of Minor White, Elliott Erwitt, William Anderson, and Garry Winogrand realize.”

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023), "Piano Lesson, Odessa." 1957, Gelatin silver print, Collection Everson Museum of Art, gift of Mr. Kenneth Futter; PC 79.56.4

Diving deeper, in a more voyeuristic manner, Hopper uses the window as a means to surround and trap his subjects in interior and exterior views simultaneously, as critic Brian O’Doherty once described. With painterly tactics, Hopper forces the viewer to consider the figures within their constructed environment — apartments, automats, diners, bedrooms, hotels, and offices.

Installation photos courtesy Andrea B. Swenson Photography

PORTAL: THE WINDOW IN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY is organized by the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, and is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the New York Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Additional support has been provided by Dykes Lumber Company and Marvin Windows.