Edward Hopper's Emerging ArtistIC Vision
On view in the Arthayer & Ruth Sanborn Gallery
Today, from the front porch of the historic house where Edward Hopper was born in 1882, one may imagine the young aspiring artist looking straight down Nyack’s Second Avenue to the Hudson River dotted with boats at work and play. Inside, what is now the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, is the bedroom that served as the Hopper’s first studio. Visitors are invited into the home where Edward Hopper grew up, as well as the neighborhood and town that helped to shape his views.
Early drawings, watercolors, paintings, and etchings together with his art making tools and memorabilia, including model boats he made, are presented on an ongoing basis. These objects give audiences new insights into forces at play while Hopper grew up which helped shape his view and aesthetics, leading him on the path to becoming one of the defining American artists of the 20th century.
Early drawings, watercolors, paintings, and etchings together with his art making tools and memorabilia, including model boats he made, are presented on an ongoing basis. These objects give audiences new insights into forces at play while Hopper grew up which helped shape his view and aesthetics, leading him on the path to becoming one of the defining American artists of the 20th century.
Visitors may view the artist's childhood drawings from private collections including the Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust, alongside Hopper’s school notebooks and artmaking materials and artworks by family members from the Museum’s Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive. Together, these objects provide a glimpse into Hopper’s early years, the influence of his boyhood proximity to the busy waterfront and commercial district of his hometown, and insights into his life at home and his family’s support of his developing talent and ambitions.
Edward Hopper, Three Commodores' Signal Flags, Manuscript ink, graphite pencil, hand-applied colorants from "TC" (Three Commodores) By-Laws notebook, 1896. Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center,The Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive
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Edward Hopper, Anatomical drawings of Adult Sea-Squirt, Minnow and Lancelet, c. 1896-1899, manuscript inks, graphite, from his high school Zoology notebook, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center; The Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive
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Edward Hopper, Smith’s Dock, 1900, Ink on paper, Collection of Steve Oifer
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Hopper's creativity emerged while growing up at the family home a block from the Hudson River. As proclaimed in this Museum’s 2011 landmark exhibition, Edward Hopper, Prelude: The Nyack Years, his hometown prepared Hopper for the credo he rigorously followed: that the aim of art “is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me by means of the world that is within me, all things being grasped, related, re-created, molded and reconstructed in a personal form and an original manner.” The 2022-23 exhibition "Edward Hopper's Boyhood on the Hudson and Emerging Artistic Vision" further investigated how the artistic vision of Edward Hopper (1882-1967) coalesced during his youth in Nyack, before he moved to New York City in 1908 at age 26 to pursue a career in illustration.
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Edward Hopper's Paintbox
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Fungus, inscribed: “Edward Hopper, Camp Nyack Greenwood lake, N.Y., July 24th, 1900.” 6 ¼ in x 5 ⅜ x 2 in
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Edward Hopper's Paint Box, manufactured by F.W. Devoe. Metal (handpainted), c.1892-1895, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, The Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive
