Individual Artists, Artists - Biography, Regionalism & American Scene Painting

Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography

Name: Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography
Author: Gail Levin
ISBN: 9780847829309

by Gail Levin

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Overview

In the art of Edward Hopper (1882-1967), tense, unhappy men and women, in whom we recognize something of our neighbors and ourselves, play out mysterious dramas in silent, stripped-down spaces - stages raked by an unrelenting and revealing light. These paintings, and Hopper's equally evocative landscapes and houses, make us wonder: what kind of man had this haunting vision, and what kind of life engendered this art? No one is better qualified to answer these questions than the art historian Gail Levin, author of the major studies of Hopper's work (including the catalogue raisonne) and curator of many exhibitions that explored his development and cultural context. Delving deeply into his art and into a rich archive of unpublished letters and diaries, she now constructs "An Intimate Biography," which reveals the true nature and personality of the man himself - and of the woman who shared his life and helped to shape his art. Jo Hopper's diaries permit an intimate look at the interactions of an indissolubly bonded couple, revealing for the first time the personal tensions that lie behind some of Hopper's most haunting works. Gail Levin, sifting the gritty reality of Jo's story with her own analytic skills and historical and literary knowledge, uses the diaries to great effect in linking specific paintings to the time, place, and mood in which they were created.

Our mental picture of Hopper is based on his images of alienated men and women and of stark landscapes. Now, Hopper scholar and curator Gail Levin shows the reader both the truth and the inaccuracy of those notions, and reveals the man himself. Included also is the story of Jo Hopper, a woman who sacrificed her identity as an artist to be his wife, model, and partner. Photos.

Synopsis

Edward Hopper's canvasses are filled with stripped-down spaces and unrelenting light, evocative landscapes, and the lonely aspects of men and women seemingly isolated in their surroundings. What kind of man had this haunting vision, and what kind of life engendered this art? No one is better qualified to answer these questions than art historian Gail Levin, author and curator of the major studies and exhibitions of Hopper's work.
In this intimate biography she reveals the true nature and personality of the man himself—and of the woman who shared his life, the artist Josephine Nivison.

Publishers Weekly

This remarkable biography throws Hopper's art and life into sharp new perspective. Its focus is the laconic, introverted painter's stormy 43-year marriage to outspoken, gregarious Josephine (``Jo'') Nivison, herself an artist. Levin, art professor at Baruch College and the City University of New York graduate school, draws extensively on Jo Hopper's intimate diaries, which she kept from the early 1930s until shortly before her death in 1968 (just 10 months after her husband died). Through diary entries, we learn that Hopper ridiculed, degraded and occasionally beat or bruised his wife, that he refused to let her drive their car, that he thwarted her career even as she devotedly helped him find subjects to paint. Nevertheless, as his model, intellectual peer and fellow artist, she stimulated his creativity, and, according to Levin, they became partners and conspirators in a domestic drama of deep attraction and violent opposition that fed his disquieting vision of modern life. Illustrated throughout with photographs as well as scores of reproductions of both Hoppers' paintings and drawings. (Sept.)

About the Author, Gail Levin

Gail Levin is Professor of Art History at Baruch College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

From the thoughts and reflections in Jo Nivison Hopper's diary, Hopper authority and cataloguer Gail Levin constructs the most thorough biography of the American painter to date. What emerges is a picture of two artists in a stormy 43-year marriage marked by violence and sacrifice, cruelty and devotion. Since original source material from Hopper himself is almost nonexistent, Levin necessarily relies on his wife's point of view, but whether the man behind the ambivalent, melancholy vision of post-industrial age America is truly revealed here remains a matter of question. So it seems Hopper will, in many ways, remain a mystery. Of tremendous value, however, is Levin's drive to reconstruct the time, place, and mood from which each of Hopper's major works were created. An essential companion to Levin's five books on Hopper's work.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

Hopper's cool portrayals of American life transcend photographic realism and, like the oft-reproduced and -parodied "Nighthawks," have become icons of despair and a remote hope. This thorough work is by necessity a dual biography of Hopper and Josephine Nivison Hopper, the artist's wife of nearly 50 years. By relying on the diaries and letters of Jo, Levin has depicted the antagonistic symbiosis of the couple's marriage. Jo Hopper was an untiringthough not uncomplainingadvocate of her husband's art and the female model for the characters in most of his great works. Hopper is depicted as a misogynist who takes every opportunity to thwart his wife's already frustratedthough not wholly unsuccessfulpainting career. Living up to the "intimate" of the subtitle, Levin's biography has taken advantage of her sources to create a detailed and monumental ledger of the genesis and creation of Hopper's modern masterpieces. Levin, the author of numerous works on Hopper (including the recent Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonn, Norton, 1995), has carefully balanced the artistic and personal lives of the Hoppers. Recommended for all art and biography collections.Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.

Donna Seaman

opper's reticence was legendary, so Levin, a Hopper scholar, turned to the diaries of Hopper's far more loquacious wife, Jo, for insights into their very private life and discovered that Jo was essential to the creation of Edward's art. Levin's biography is, therefore, a double portrait. Edward and Jo were collaborators, soul mates, and adversaries for 45 productive if anguished years. Edward was an artist practically from birth, and Jo, an unusually independent young woman for her time, was also a painter, but once she married Edward, she sacrificed her art for his. Edward was as ruthlessly selfish as he was talented, as coldly competitive as he was brilliant. Jo posed for every female figure Edward painted, chronicled the making of every major work, and cajoled Edward out of his frequent slumps. Levin analyzes Edward's repressed and repressive personality and contentious marriage, then illuminates the sources of his powerful and provocative paintings and discusses his belief that art, in his words, "is one's effort to communicate to others one's emotional reaction to life and the world." That he did, with resounding success.