By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — A new exhibit at the Whitney Museum looks at the everyday life of early 20th century New York City through the brushstrokes of America's most significant realist painter, Edward Hopper.
"Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time," which opens Thursday at the Whitney Museum of American Art, chronologically traces Hopper's artistic evolution by featuring his works from 1900 through the 1930s alongside those of his contemporaries, all of whom turned their paint brushes toward an unexamined subject in American art: the city.
Upon arriving in New York at the turn of the century, Hopper's work defined him as a part of the Ashcan painters, a group whose art dealt with what they saw as the vitality and humanity of the lower classes in New York City.
"This was a group of artists who, for the first time, were painting what they saw on the street," said the exhibit's co-curator Barbara Haskell. "To think about the everyday person in New York instead of just the higher echelons of society was a new and liberating experience for them."
Hopper had an almost voyeuristic interest in the anonymity of urban life, which is illustrated in his painting "New York Interior," where the viewer is made to feel like they are peeking into an apartment window from a distance.
During the Roaring Twenties, Hopper's work, unlike many of his contemporaries, did not reflect the glamor and excitement of the time, but rather captured the solitude of the city in quieter moments.
Inspired by Seventh Avenue shops as well as by a contemporary theatrical stage set, "Early Sunday Morning" is defined by the absence of people and activity, almost as though the city is holding its breath.
The 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression led people to retreat from the city to the countryside, which is reflected in much of Hopper's work from the thirties, after he and his wife moved up to Cape Cod.
This change in the artist's landscape is represented in "Gas," Hopper's famous painting of an illuminated country gas station.
"Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time" opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art on Thursday and runs through April 10, 2011. The Whitney is located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street.
