Edward Hopper: "New York Corner"

The Cantor Arts Center welcomes a major acquisition, Edward Hopper’s seminal painting New York Corner, created when the artist was 31 and considered the first work made in his representational style. Hopper is one of the most acclaimed and influential artists of the 20th-century. His powerful and iconic seascapes, cityscapes, and depictions of solitary figures in urban interiors expose the rugged individualism of American culture in all its beauty and isolation. Celebrated equally for his extraordinary skill as a painter and his haunting depictions of daily life in the mid-20th century, Hopper has fueled the imaginations of generations of artists, filmmakers, and writers. The exhibition showcases the painting and contextualizes it by grouping works from the museum’s collection into several art-object-based “conversations.” These constellations point to the kinds of artistic practice that preceded the painting’s creation; showcase concurrent work, both similar and different, by Hopper’s contemporaries; and present the kinds of practice that followed. Woven through the show are themes of modern urban life, the cityscape as subject matter, and realism and its connection to photography. A companion exhibition, Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed, runs concurrently in the same gallery.