Hopper's America • A Road Trip into Art History

Meeting Edward Hopper

November 16, 2015November 26, 2015

Route 7

The first time I met an Edward Hopper picture in person was in my early twenties. I had discovered Edward Hopper years before as a teenager, when I read a review of a retrospective of his paintings which came through Washington, D.C. My sophomore year of high school had finished days earlier. The best way to explain my state of mind then was that it rhymed with Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’, the famous portrayal of urban angst and solitude which was splashed on top of the Washington Post article reviewing the show. That night, I crawled in rush hour traffic to the Borders Books at Tysons Corner as the summer sun set over the smog of Route 7. I found a Taschen book of Edward Hopper’s paintings and flipped through it for an hour.

Princeton Hoppers: A Great Loneliness

August 15, 2019

Princeton Hoppers, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey

The Princeton Hoppers are in the Princeton University Art Museum. I look with Laura Giles, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum, at Princeton’s three Hoppers watercolors. Universalist Church, Trawler and Telegraph Pole and Lime Rock Railroad were all given to the museum by Clifton R. Hall. ‘He always seems to project this great loneliness,’ she says of Hopper.

Trenton Hopper: A Boat Out of Water

August 14, 2019

Trenton Hopper, Boat and Cliff, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton

The Trenton Hopper is literally a boat out of water. Trenton, New Jersey is home to the New Jersey State Museum. The New Jersey State Museum’s Fine Arts Collection primarily focuses on New Jersey artists. However, it has a sprinkling of other works of art for comparative purposes. Included in this sample is, of course, the Trenton Hopper, Boat and Cliff (1929).

Norfolk Hopper: Chrysler’s Plaything

August 13, 2019August 14, 2019

Norfolk Hopper, Chrysler Museum, Norfolk

It’s a stormy drive from Chapel Hill to Norfolk, Virginia. The Norfolk Hopper picture is in the Chrysler Museum. The Chrysler Museum in Norfolk owes its existence, just as the surrounding city does, to the military.

Norfolk is home to the largest naval base in the world. Norfolk’s miles of shoreline, blanketed by fog and lined by piers, bridges and inlets, have a distinctly military feel to them.

Uniformed personnel on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan fill my motel in Norfolk. At breakfast, a group awaiting a delayed flight enjoy a lazy breakfast in the lobby.

Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.: An Art-Obsessed Scion

Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. was the son of the founder of the Chrysler Corporation. Chrysler met and married a Norfolk native and gym teacher, Jean Outland, while serving in the Navy in World War II.

Chapel Hill Hopper – A Watercolor Without a Home

July 29, 2019January 24, 2020

Sir Archie, the reason for Chapel Hill's Hopper watercolor

I find Chapel Hill’s Hopper nestled amidst verdant forest. Chapel Hill is a college town of the University of North Carolina (UNC). On Chapel Hill’s main street, amputee panhandlers and drunk manic depressives alternately yell at each other, passers-by and police.

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