Edward Hopper Paintings in Pandemic

Women at Sun, 1961                                               

  Morning Sun, 1952

Nighthawks is a painting depicting the solitude and silence shared by a group of people. In addition to Nighthawks, the artist has many paintings rendering individual loneliness. Hopper’s works such as “Morning Sun” and “A Woman in the Sun” also show lonely women in rooms. In “Morning Sun”, we see a thoughtful woman sitting alone in her room, and in “A Woman in the Sun” painting, again a lonely and thoughtful woman standing toward an open window. It is not surprising that we find ourselves in the paintings of the painter in these days when we work and keep pace with flow of life from our homes: We feel intimate with Hopper’s paintings during the epidemic period when we all return to ourselves in our rooms and homes.

Early Sunday Morning, 1930

Nighthawks is a painting depicting the solitude and silence shared by a group of people. In addition to Nighthawks, the artist has many paintings rendering individual loneliness. Hopper’s works such as “Morning Sun” and “A Woman in the Sun” also show lonely women in rooms. In “Morning Sun”, we see a thoughtful woman sitting alone in her room, and in “A Woman in the Sun” painting, again a lonely and thoughtful woman standing toward an open window. It is not surprising that we find ourselves in the paintings of the painter in these days when we work and keep pace with flow of life from our homes: We feel intimate with Hopper’s paintings during the epidemic period when we all return to ourselves in our rooms and homes.

The indoor spaces and empty streets in Hopper’s paintings remind us of the state of our streets during the quarantine. The empty street, closed shops and restaurants in the “Early Sunday Morning” are quite familiar to us. Hopper painted the “Early Sunday Morning” in 1930; exactly at the time of the Great Economic Depression. The gloomy atmosphere of the painting, empty shops and streets are said to reflect the impact of the Great Economic Depression on the city. Considering that one of the effects of the pandemic is the global economic difficulties, Hopper’s desolate streets, closed shops and our deserted streets, restaurants and shopping centers are no stranger to each other.

Sarah Kelly Oehler, curator of American Art at the Chicago Art Institute, add another interpretation to Hopper’s Nighthawks: “… Perhaps Hopper sees this illuminated dining table not as a place with isolated people but as a glimmer of hope lighted by people who are able to come together despite the mercilessness and intolerableness of the outside.” Although we feel the loneliness and longing for a lively social life in Hopper’s paintings, this interpretation of Oehler becomes a beacon of hope for the lovers of the famous painter as we enter a new year.