Missed the Edward Hopper exhibition? You can still see his work without ever stepping foot on a PATH train. The experience might even be preferable to squeezing through the crowds that descended on the Whitney Museum of American Art in the final weekend.
MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM
Coast Guard Station, 1929, was painted during a summer at Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The radiance of the sunlight, and how the artist uses paint to depict it, has to be seen in person. MAM bought the painting in 1937 as Hopper’s career was soaring.
NEWARK MUSEUM OF ART
The Sheridan Theatre, 1937, depicts a movie house near Hopper’s home in Greenwich Village. According to the exhibition notes, the artist worked on this painting with the lights off in his studio. This was an era when cinemas became grandiose public places.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ART
This is the place to go to if you want to see Hopper’s watercolors. Universalist Church, 1926, is one of three in their permanent collections. PUAM also has a creepy etching called Night Shadows — a masterful use of shading and perspective. The museum is closed for renovations until 2024.
EDWARD HOPPER HOUSE
A 45-minute drive north will land you at the doorstep of Hopper’s childhood home in Nyack, NY, now a gallery and museum. The town is well-preserved and offers many of the places that not only shaped the artist during his formative years, but served as subjects of his later works. The current exhibition, “Edward Hopper’s Boyhood on the Hudson River and Emerging Artistic Vision” closes March 23, 2023. Book tickets in advance.
