Cape Cod 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.

Ringling Museum, Sarasota: A Cape Cod Story

November 6, 2016

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota is the state art museum of Florida. At the time of my visit, it is undergoing major renovations. Sadly, its Hopper watercolor ‘Jenness House Looking North’ (1934) is packed deep in storage and unavailable for viewing. Instead, I pore over the watercolor’s correspondence and papers. These offer a fascinating view of Hopper’s life in Cape Cod.

Watercolors: Hopper and Cape Cod on Show

September 29, 2016September 29, 2016

Bow of Beam Trawler Widgeon 1927 Edward Hopper

The two Hopper watercolors in the Blount Collection are very different works to ‘New York Office’. ‘Light at Two Lights’ (1927) is on its way to Boston, where we’ll get a chance to have a closer look at it. ‘Bow of Beam Trawler Widgeon’ (1926), is the other MMFA Hopper watercolor.

Huntington: Pretty in Pasadena

December 3, 2015December 8, 2015

Huntington Railroad Fortune

One of the enduring pleasures of visiting art museums is to imagine yourself as the owner of the priceless work of art in front of you. The truly democratic aspect of public museums is that every patron becomes an artwork’s owner for one ephemeral moment.

Nowhere is this illusion better preserved than at the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, an affluent Los Angeles suburb just south of Pasadena. Huntington, a superbly wealthy railroad and real estate magnate, owned twelve hundred acres of land here.