Edward Hopper: Drawings of New York and Cape Cod

EDWARD HOPPER Drawings of New York and Cape Cod

EDWARD HOPPER Drawings of New York and Cape Cod

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition on view May 5-30, 2025

Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81st Street New York, NY 10028 (212) 249-9216

info@jillnewhouse.com www.jillnewhouse.com

Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81st Street New York, NY

Front cover: Landscape with Automobile , 1962

Design by Amelia Gorman Copyright 2025 Jill Newhouse LLC

(212) 249-9216

info@jillnewhouse.com

www.jillnewhouse.com

Acknowledgements

Edward Hopper created some of the most iconic images in American art by relying on his own particular brand of cinematic, voyeuristic realism; and drawing was an essential part of this creative process. Hopper drew constantly, and relied on his drawings to provide essential documentation in connecting observed reality with the world he portrayed on canvas. The opportunity to study and exhibit an artist’s work in depth is a rare event, especially an artist of such renown as Edward Hopper. And this is even more true of Hopper’s works on paper and preparatory draw ings, which afford us great insight into the art of this great painter. For this opportunity, the gallery would like to thank Peter and Patti Find lay, Frank Capezzera and other New York collectors for help in organizing this exhibition. Thanks to Amelia Gorman who organized everything in the gallery.

“My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature.”

Edward Hopper, 1945

Jill Newhouse

Provenance note: Unless otherwise noted, the drawings in this exhibition have the following provenance: Bequeathed by the artist to his wife Josephine Hopper (1883-1968); Bequeathed by Jo Hopper, along with the Hopper house in Truro, to her longtime friend Mary Schiffenhaus; Gifted by Mary Schiffenhaus to private collection in 1969.

1. Self Portrait

1900 Pencil on paper

5 1/4 x 3 3/4 in. (13.3 x 9.5 cm) Signed and dated lower left

LITERATURE: G. Levin. Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist . New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1999. Pl. 2.

Loan, Private Collection

2. Old Church on New City Road, Nyack

June 1900 Pencil on paper 10 x 13 3/4 in. (25.4 x 34.9 cm) Signed and dated lower right: “E.Hopper-1950-June” and lower left: “old church on New City Road”

PROVENANCE: Kennedy Galleries, New York.

Loan, Private Collection

3. Landscape with Small Buildings c. 1944 Pencil on paper 5 3/4 x 16 in. (14.6 x 40.6 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 7.

4. High Noon (Study)

1949 Charcoal on paper 8 7/16 x 11 in. (21.4 x 27.9 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 13. LITERATURE: G. Levin. Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonné . New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1995. vol. III, p. 328, fig. 340.2. Our drawing is a study for a painting in the collection of the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio. Hopper and his wife Jo bought a house on Cape Cod in 1934 and would spend 40 years summering there. This depiction of a single house, not sheltered by trees, with a single figure standing in the doorway is emblematic of Hopper’s cinematic vision of isolation and benign solitude.

The sky and rural landscape beyond is large and empty. There is no sense of activity. In the drawing as in the painting, a figure stands alone in a large house that is struck by sunlight, casting dramatic shadows on the roof and walls. High Noon is an iconic image, showing us Hopper’s interest in the exploration of light and shadow and in creating a consistent narrative about modern life.

High Noon , 1949, Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches, The Dayton Art Institute, 1971.1

5. Study for Portrait of Orleans

1950 Pencil on Bond paper 10 1/2 x 16 in. (26.7 x 40.6 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 15. LITERATURE: G. Levin. Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonné . New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1995. vol. III, p. 332, fig. 342.1. Our drawing is a study for the painting Portrait of Orleans , in the collection of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. This portrait of a town on Cape Cod in Massachusetts gives us a nostalgic view of Main Street America. It captures the moment of transformation of the American landscape after World War II, nostalgically referencing the past while hinting at the rise of the postwar car culture in the 1950s.

Illustrating the tension between stillness and impending motion, Orleans visualizes the town from the point of view of a driver deciding whether to continue straight onto Main Street or to veer off to the right and take Route 6A.

Portrait of Orleans , 1950, Oil on canvas, 26 x 40 inches, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1991.32

6. Study for Portrait of Orleans

1950 Pencil on Bond paper 10 1/2 x 16 in. (26.7 x 40.6 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 16.

7. Study for Portrait of Orleans

1950 Pencil on Bond paper 10 1/2 x 16 in. (26.7 x 40.6 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 16.

8. Cityscape

1959 Charcoal on paper 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (16.5 x 21.6 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 7.

9. Study for Excursion into Philosophy 1959 Charcoal on paper 8 3/8 x 10 15/16 in. (21.3 x 27.8 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 28. LITERATURE: G. Levin. Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonné . New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1995. vol. III, p. 362, fig. 357.2. Our drawing is a study for the painting Excursion into Philosophy (Private collection) which presents a contemplative scene in an interior space, geometric patches of sun light covering the room. A man at the edge of the bed appears consumed by thought, while a woman sleeps behind him with her back turned to the viewer. In the fore ground, an open book rests on the bed, which according to Jo Hopper, is a book of writings by Plato (from which the painting’s title derives).

Our drawing depicts a moment earlier in the narrative, showing the female figure sit ting up on the bed, her back turned to us, so the viewer can only guess at what might be under discussion.

Excursion into Philosophy , 1959, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, Private collection

"To me the most important thing is the sense of going on. You know how beautiful things are when you're traveling."

Edward Hopper, 1939

10. Landscape with Automobile 1962 Charcoal on paper 9 x 11 in. (22.9 x 27.9 cm)

EXHIBITIONS: New York, Peter Findlay Gallery. Edward Hopper: The Capezzera Drawings . 2005. Excat, p. 35. New York, Whitney Museum of American Art. Hopper Drawing . May 23-October 6, 2013. Excat, no. 317, p. 172. This drawing takes as its subject the open road and is related to a painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art called Road and Trees . Hopper blurs the trees behind the car and creates a sense of movement; the car is cut off at the edge of the picture as if he could not capture its entirety before it sped off.

Nicholas Robbins in the 2013 Whitney Museum exhibition described this drawing as having “ a measure of velocity uncommon in the artist’s body of work, which is so often marked by a deliberate stillness…in its speed and fugitive quality, the process of making the drawing matches the landscape it records.”

Road and Trees , 1962, Oil on canvas, 34 x 60 inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2016-3-1.

11. Couple at a Street Corner

c. 1962 Charcoal on paper 8 1/2 x 11 in. (21.6 x 27.9 cm)

Loan, Private Collection

BACK COVER

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