- 18
Edward Hopper 1882-1967
Description
- Edward Hopper
- Houses on the Beach, Gloucester
- signed Edward Hopper, l.r.
- watercolor on paper
- 14 by 20 in.
- (35.6 by 50.8 cm)
- Executed circa 1923.
Provenance
Acquired from the above, 1956
Exhibited
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper, September-November 1964, no. 79, p. 66
Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum, American Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings from the Collection of Rita and Daniel Fraad, May-July 1985, no. 49, p. 102, illustrated p. 103
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Edward Hopper: Light Years, October-November 1988, no. 6, p. 20, illustrated p. 17
Washington, D.C., The National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institute; Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Edward Hopper: The Watercolors, October 1999-March 2000, no. 6, pp. 27-28, illustrated in color fig. 33
Literature
Hilton Kramer, "In the Museums," Art in America, April 1964, p. 39, illustrated
Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, New York, 1995, no. W-81, p. 50, illustrated in color
Catalogue Note
Houses on the Beach, Gloucester, likely painted during Hopper’s second summer in Gloucester, typifies the watercolors of this period with its careful attention to the classic American architecture and in its fluid washes in cool tones. The translucency of the watercolor medium, combined with the spontaneity required in execution, proved to be ideally suited to capturing the luminosity that Hopper sought--a quality that has become a hallmark of his work. His commitment to commonplace subject matter, which he often infused with a subtle mood of mystery or melancholy continued to offer his contemporary audience a novel interpretation of the familiar American scene.
Virginia Mecklenberg writes, “In Houses on the Beach, Gloucester the ribbon of sand in the foreground drops off to the beach revealing the bulkhead that protects the house and the support piling visible below. Here Hopper has emphasized the precariousness of homes set at the water’s edge. The cropping of the house at the right, the dramatic silhouetting of the gambrel roof against the sky, and the fences that prevent outside approach reflect the dichotomy between nature and culture that would become a Hopper trademark” (Edward Hopper: The Watercolors, p. 27).