This sprawling study of his career and marriage sets the great
painter of modern bleakness in an important new light but fails to
fully illuminate his psyche. Writing on Hopper's (1882 - 1967)
youth, Levin (Art/Baruch College and Graduate School, CUNY) works
up hints about his early cultural milieu and hypotheses about his
family into tentative psychological sketches. Hopper, she suggests,
was a puritan chauvinist whose rectitude masked deep insecurities.
In perhaps her strongest sections, Levin treats Hopper's
better-documented student years. A protege of the legendary teacher
Robert Henri, Hopper struggled to assert himself as a serious
artist in the tradition of older contemporaries such as John Sloan.
Sojourns in Paris shaped his erotic sensibilities while undermining
his allegiance to the cultural nationalism then dominant in the
American art world. At age 41, just as he began to receive serious
recognition, Hopper married painter Jo Nivison. The diary that she
kept during the remaining 40-plus years of Hopper's life serves as
Levin's key source. While Edward produced his most successful
works, Jo played a crucial role as model, collaborator, and goad.
Her own career, however, remained stalled. Jo's resentment of
Edward's cruelties - from his refusal to allow her to drive to his
physical attacks on her - reinforced her bitterness toward him and
the art world generally for belittling her work. Jo's diary records
the agony that Edward's painter's block brought them both. The deep
motivation for his torturous pace remains an enigma here, however.
While reporting Jo's diagnoses of Edward's sadism, Levin never
really fleshes out the psychological profile that her early
chapters promise. All the same, Levin provides a crucial reference
work for further research on the master. Depressing, at times
tedious, yet nonetheless compelling, this book bears well the
inevitable comparison to one of Hopper's signature tableaus.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Hopper is generally considered the major twentieth-century realist.
Such paintings as House by the Railroad, Early Sunday Morning, and
Nighthawks seem to embody the very character of our time. Yet few
people have penetrated the mask of Hopper's public image. Here,
Gail Levin has gone beyond the standard evaluations of the man and
his work to investigate the authentic identity of the artist and
the way his personality informed his art. She has uncovered aspects
of Hopper's life (and even unknown works) that provide the first
comprehensive view of the artists early development. The
fascinating and often poignant story of Hopper's long struggle for
recognition gives new insight into his later pessimism. A complex
man is revealed, introspective and intellectual, yet romantic,
illuminating the many levels of meaning in the paintings of his
maturity.In addition to Hopper's watercolors and oil paintings,
there are study drawings for his major works and documentary
photographs illuminating all phases of his life.
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