This piece, Nighthawks was painted by Edward Hopper in 1942. Hopper was born in Nyack, New York in 1882, and is classed as the best painter of modern American life, painting amazing realism pieces of everyday life in cities, towns, villages and all sorts of surroundings. Hopper was a realist; he painted everyday scenes, one of his teachers, the artist Robert Henri, influenced Hopper to draw realistic depictions of urban life. By 1899 he had already decided to become an artist, but his parents persuaded him to begin by studying commercial illustration, painting for posters, books and advertising, because this seemed to offer a more secure future. He first attended the New York School of Illustrating and then in 1900 transferred to the New York School of Art.
As well as getting influenced by other great people, Hopper was a big figure to others. One of the reasons Hopper was able to depict the feeling of the 1920s was because he was influenced by other artists, and even film makers. Though his works were always interpreted in this way, the artist himself claims " I don't think I ever tried to paint the American scene; I'm just trying to paint myself" (qtd. The streets were also always deserted, and people were depicted inside of places, like cafes, stores and hotels. There are never any personal objects in the painting, that give people any sort of identity, or character. Since Hopper worked in his own style, and Burgin was a modernist artist, he did his versions of the modern "Office at NIght" and these works help us understand Hoppers messages even further (Dawtrey 159). There is also a loss in communication present, even between couples. He believed that people in the 1920s acted as if clones, and therefore the same image, of himself as the typical american, were used in the paintings. There is a " loss of community amidst modern capitalist competitive interest" (Doss 84). Dawtrey, the author of Investigating Modern Art, also described Hoppers work as "an investigation of the alienating and dehumanizing effects of capitalist work processes". This was the idea of an "unseen observer" (Dawtrey 160). From the diaries of Edward's wife, Josephine, we can tell that his works, especially "Nighthawks", was a reaction to the Japanese assault on Pear Harbor in 1941, after which the organized nation practically fell apart, due to shock (Beckett 137). Hopper also made up a new concept in art, which was then adapted by other painters, such as Burgin. These are the works that are most known, and used to represent life in the US.
Artist Study Coursework January 2009