Biography

He was born on July 22, 1882 in Nyack, New York city where he studied illustration arts in a local school from 1899 till the 1900. The rest of his life was spent refining and purifying the techniques he applied but retained the basic principles to which he adhered to. He painted a wide range of landscapes, from cities such as New York and New England, all of home quality that the ordinary person can appreciate without much inclination of art. Deserted streets, half-empty theaters, gas stations, boarding houses and railroad tracks, all were benign in reality but given a touch of art in his works. He worked outside of mainstream 20th century abstraction with his simple schematic style having influence on the representational revival of pop art.

He settled in Greenwich Village which was to be his base for the rest of his life. In the following year, he married Josephine Nivison who was also an artist and fellow student with Henri and shared his love with France and the arts. Their relationship was marred by many quarrels that often resulted in physical violence. But her presence and importance to Hopper’s work was very important enough that she is known to have modeled for all the female figures in his paintings. Their union also had a profound influence on his artistic career for when he engaged in his second solo show in 1924, all his work was sold out  at the Rehn Gallery in New York.

He continued to paint into his old age, switching time between Truro, Massachusetts and New York City. In his old age he, he found it difficult to create more artistic work due to the rise of Abstract Expressionism. The master often found suitable objects for his work but found it very difficult to discover true inspiration. This left him with a feeling of being marooned unable to continue. He died in his studio near Washington Square in New York City on May 15, 1967. His wife who was also a painter died 10 months later who left all his work to the Whitney Museum of American Art.