Edward Hopper was raised in Nyack, New York, where his creativity was fostered by his supportive parents and his childhood home influenced his interpretation of light and space in his paintings.
Video Features
Clip | Edward Hopper’s career soared as wife Jo Nivison’s faltered
Clip | Edward Hopper’s simple lifestyle with wife Jo
Clip | Edward Hopper’s work showed a narrow view of New York
Clip | A closer look at Edward Hopper’s “Automat” and “Chop Suey”
Clip | Edward Hopper’s childhood in Nyack, New York
Clip | Rare interview footage of Edward Hopper on his process
Written Features
TRANSCRIPT
- I think this is a room that probably shaped him and had a formative influence on his interpretation of light, of windows, of space, of interior and exterior and the views directly to the river.
(gentle music) Edward Hopper loved to sail.
There's a beautiful photograph of him as a young child, maybe seven or eight in a rowboat.
Here he sits alone, but content on the water.
His mother knew how to encourage him to draw.
He was curious and was given notepads to walk the town to capture the people's expressions.
I think he just was allowed to be creative and that was something that really set his family apart rather than pushing him to business, pushing him to a profession.
- The major impact his father had on his life was clearly the love of reading.
He was described as bookish.
He said, "My father should have been a poet or a philosopher."
The other major factor was a growth spurt.
By all accounts, he grew approximately an entire foot in eighth grade, so at one point, he was six foot four as an adolescent, and that had a great impact.
There were descriptions of him having painful discomfort as a result of this growth spurt, but also his self-image suffered.
He was taunted by children at school.
They bullied him.
- Edward Hopper was in high school and working as the artist of his high school newspaper.
He realized there was a role that an artist could play.
There are people that are just born to be what they're going to be, and I think he is a rare example of someone that was born to be an artist.
