abstraction Archives • Hopper's America

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.

Foreshore-Two Lights: Atlanta’s Edward Hopper Watercolor

January 20, 2017January 24, 2020

The beautiful Edward Hopper watercolor at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta was once known as ‘Cape Elizabeth’. However, it was posthumously changed to ‘Foreshore-Two Lights’ (1927). Two Lights is a rocky point with two lighthouses at the tip of Cape Elizabeth peninsula, Maine. So beautiful is it that Jo Hopper wrote about ‘Foreshore-Two Lights’, ‘This one of his best sea pictures [sic], calmly dramatic but making no claims.’

St. Louis: Gateway to the West

May 27, 2016May 27, 2016

St. Louis is a long four hour drive across Missouri from Kansas City. At its outskirts, I have the overwhelming feeling of being back on the east coast, the place of my upbringing. The rolling, forested hills are reminiscent of the swampy backwoods of northern Virginia.

Hallmark Hopper

April 28, 2016April 29, 2016

Edward Hopper California Hills Hallmark Art Collection

Hallmark is a well-known purveyor of clever greeting cards and sweet telemovies. Its headquarters is a sprawling, subterranean complex on the outskirts of the central business district of Kansas City. Unknown to most, it is home to the five thousand piece Hallmark Art Collection.

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