Edward Hopper at the MFA

There was a dopey synchronicity in being alone with Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" at the MFA yesterday, just me and that lonely diner crew, plus a dreadlocked security guard who didn't seem especially interested in either. For just a moment I could imagine myself in a noirish, existential version of Ben Stiller's "Night At The Museum," as if the hard guy sitting with his dame at the counter might hit me up for a cigarette or ask me what I thought I was looking at.

My brush with painting greatness came during the press preview for the "Edward Hopper" exhibit, appearing at the MFA Sunday through Aug. 19 before traveling to the National Gallery in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago (where "Nighthawks" lives). "Nighthawks" (1942) is one of the few serious paintings that nearly all  Americans recognize, at least in the parody peopled by Humphrey Bogart et al. But it's only the most famous of about 100 Hopper works in the Gund Gallery show. Most are from his most productive years, 1925-1950, and many depict scenes from the New England coast - on Cape Cod and in Gloucester and on Cape Elizabeth, ME. This is a don't-miss show.

While I tend to veer away from the pack at the press previews, the better to get alone time with Hopper or Monet or Van Gogh, it was also important to listen to MFA American Paintings curator Carol Troyen knit it all together. If there's some grand scholarly breakthrough revealed in this exhibit, I missed it, but it does make plenty of connections and open a few windows onto his work, both the more pastoral landscapes and the rather spooky urban paintings. You'll have to read the catalog or buy the audio tour for her insights, though.

What I can tell you here is that you'll want to linger, as these quiet and thinly populated pictures seem to have a great deal to say. The zigzag angles of railings and eaves going down among "Gloucester Roofs" (1928) - a small  masterpiece, I think - read to me as a subliminal depiction of the insularity of that little harbor town. Someone, perhaps Troyer, remarked on how odd it is that the car in "Western Motel" (1957) is parked so close to the window of the room in which a woman is sitting - but it seemed to me that Hopper was quite consciously trying to depict a new kind of rootlessness under the big sky.

Those of you familiar with his paintings of the eastern lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth and related buildings will find them here, including the three largest, which are together for the first time in decades, perhaps the first time ever. My favorite (alas, not available as a .jpg) was "Lighthouse Hill" (1927), which offers an intense, visceral feeling of light and shadow in late afternoon sunlight. But Hopper's mastery of painting in those components is still overshadowed by the intensity of the blue sky above. Not since the Van Gogh Portraits exhibit has there been a better example of why you have to see the picture itself, rather than a reproduction or a photograph. (So the .jpg wouldn't have done it for you anyway.)

That's your cue. This is one of those exhibits with reserved date and time of entry tickets, which are $23 for adults who aren't museum members or students or ... you know the drill. Visit the box office, www.mfa.org or call 800-440-6975.

(Mandatory image credits: The Art Institute of Chicago Friends of American Art Collection. Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For "Lighthouse and Buildings, Portland Head,Cape Elizabeth, Maine 1927," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of John T. Spaulding. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

 

Comments

[T. Golden]

While a good exhibit, I would not rate it as a must see. Some of the wood frame houses and lighthouses became repetitive. Some works were truly original whereas others seemed to be just more of the same.

[T. Hughes]

I have been a fan of Hopper for years and the chance to see this collection, in one show, is a must see. T. Golden, whose comments about demonstrate a lack of understanding of the artist and his process... and diversity, should, perhaps see the show himself to appreciate it. One painting plays off the other, and through the process, the master simply becomes divine.