Born and raised in Nyack in 1882, a small town in upstate New York, Edward Hopper studied illustration for a short period and then painting at the New York School of Art with the legendary teachers William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. He went to Europe three times (1906 to 1907 in 1909 and 1910) and especially the Parisian experience left an indelible mark on him, fueling the feeling Francophile who would never abandoned, even after settling permanently in New York since 1913.
and ninety feet high, despite the strong physical presence, was famous for his reticence, he wrote or spoke very little of his work. Died at the age of eighty years, his art enjoys the respect of critics and the public during the entire career, despite the success of the new avant-garde movements from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art. In 1948 the magazine "Look" named him one of the best American painters, in 1950 the Whitney Museum organized a major retrospective on him and in 1956 Time magazine devotes the cover. In 1967, the year of his death, represents the U.S. at the prestigious Bienal of São Paulo.
Since then, the work of Hopper was celebrated in several exhibitions and has inspired countless painters, poets and filmmakers. Eloquent tribute to the great John Updike in an essay of 1995, calls his paintings "calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic."
CINEMA
1936
Modern Times Charlie Chaplin.
The film is a straightforward transposition of the times that Chaplin and humanity were crossing. Far the intent of a film of the complaint, was quite the vision of an innocent child in the face of incomprehensible and unjustifiable distortions of adults. Chaplin saw the movie sound like the "ruin the world's oldest art, the art of pantomime, as it destroys the supreme beauty of silence". Modern times, in fact, though made in full sound, is still conceived as a silent film. The film was received with great concern by critics of the time. But the art of Chaplin survived the criticism, the main quality of the film is that it is timeless.
1954
Hopper was very fascinated by cinema, but also different directors have taken their cue from his paintings in order to realize the scenes of the film more representative of America at that time. Just mention the names of Alfred Hitchcock, Chantal Akerman and Wim Wenders. The framework of Hopper House by the Railroad of 1925 inspired the house on the hill above the Bates Motel in Hitchcock's Psycho, filmed in 1960.
1960
Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock
House by the Railroad, 1925
Oil on canvas, 61 × 73.7 cm
New York, The Museum of Modern Art
Scientific discoveries
1903
December 17, 1903. It was cold and blowing a strong wind with gusts of almost 40 kilometers per hour on the beach of Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil at Sand Hill, North Carolina. Had rained the night before, some ponds were frozen. The weather was not the best for up to flying the "Flyer" in fact the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, provide another, yet another failure. There were only five people to observe their riding with the odd glider with an engine that they themselves had built: John Daniels (who must be the only pictures that exist) and Johnny Moore, the two guardians of the sea rescue station in Kill Sand Devil Hill, and three occasional visitors who, not knowing how to spend the morning, went for a walk on the beach. Despite the wind, the Wrights decided to 10.35 groped anyway. At the controls of wood with canvas wings began Orville, lying on his stomach. The Flyer was placed on a kind of slide (had not been provided the wheels) and restrained by a cable. Then the engine was operated, carried on laps and reached a certain level, the cord that released the aircraft catapulted forward and, miraculously, instead of falling edge flew. Orville flew upwind to just over 12 seconds at a relative speed of 48.5. That same day the Wright brothers flew up three more times: 12 seconds with Wilbur at the controls, 15 "with Orville and finally to 59 noon with Wilbur flew for nearly two miles. Brought back for the last time, the aircraft was lifted by a gust of wind, capsized and was damaged, Daniels is injured. The Flyer never flew again.
Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock
ART
1929
The Museum of Modern Art in New York was founded in 1929. It is one of the first American museums to care for modern art. Assume, in fact, as a point of reference the artistic production of late '800 and early '900.
The project of MoMA is taking root through the determination of three major collectors and enthusiasts of modern art Lillie P. Bliss, Mary Quinn Sullivan and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Is contacted A. Conger Goodyear, just ousted from his position as chairman of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo because of his interest in modern art. Thus is established a committee with the task of raising funds, find a seat and choose the director for the new museum.
The temporary headquarters is found within dell'Heckscher Building on 5th Str are only six rooms to rent, but to start is fine.
On the recommendation of Conger Goodyear, the choice falls on the director Alfred H. Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 - August 15, 1981) art historian, and one of the most influential forces in the development of popular attitudes toward modern art. The choice could not have been more fortunate ...
Programs Barr was scheduled the installation of temporary exhibitions and the establishment of a permanent collection. The project also took into account all the arts, including those applied. This explains immediately become part of the collections of MoMA also photographs, prints, design objects, architectural models, artist books, films, etc..
In 1929, Goodyear went to Europe for works on loan. Back with numerous works of Cezanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and some, which constitute the backbone of the inaugural exhibition.
1931
Opens in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art designed by Marcel Breuer, a student of the Bauhaus school, this massive building houses an important collection of American art in the forefront. The permanent collection includes works by Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Besides the permanent collection, temporary exhibitions in the museum are arranged.
1959
Opens in New York's Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A museum that has attracted admiration and controversy, a place so important to diminish almost works internally, so answering the criticisms Wright architect who designed the building: "It is not to subject the paintings to the building that I conceived this project, on the contrary, to do building and painting an uninterrupted, beautiful symphony such as never was created first by the art world "
In 1937 the industrialist and collector of copper Solomon R. Guggenheim, a jew of Swiss origin, established a foundation designed to receive his private collection. In 1943 the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design the Guggenheim Foundation for a suitable location to replace the provisional one in which the precious collection of abstract art.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens its headquarters in 1959 but her famous institution was already twenty, and the collection was in progress for more than thirty. What had begun as a private collection of some of the finest examples of European avant-garde painting, emerged over the years as a professional institution, devoted to creation and education of an increasingly competent in matters of art
