FILTER RESULTS
House on Middle Street, Gloucester
1924watercolor on paper
14 in. x 20 in. (35.56 cm x 50.8 cm)
Museum Purchase: Gift of the Friends, 1962.14
Edward Hopper
American
1882–1967
(For biographical information on Edward Hopper, see entry under Hopper, The Bootleggers 1956.4)
Although Hopper had been familiar with watercolor through his work as a commercial illustrator, it was not until 1923 that he began to employ it extensively in his painting. Settling in Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the summer of that year, Hopper focused on the quiet streets and Victorian architecture of the old town. Fascinated, he returned for several summers afterward, depicting Gloucester scenes and gaining a reputation for the candid realism of his portrayals. Critics have since ranked Hopper's Gloucester watercolors among the first expressions of the artist's mature work of the 1920s.
An early and fine example, the Currier's House on Middle Street exhibits many of the salient features of Hopper's classic style. The painting depicts a late-nineteenth-century Gloucester home, stark under bright sunlight and devoid of human presence. Typical of Hopper's architectural studies, the subject is cropped, giving it an altered appearance that compels the viewer to examine its details more closely. In a similar vein, the house almost entirely fills the picture, pushing aside elements of setting and context that could distract the viewer from the visual interplay of form, light, and shadow. Yet while many of Hopper's concerns are formal in nature, he nevertheless infuses his subject with an ineffable sense of loneliness and desolation. The aura of bleakness in House on Middle Street and many other works is characteristic of Hopper and lends a poetic quality to banal subjects that would, in the hands of other artists, seldom rise above the level of simple illustration.
House on Middle Street was originally acquired in November 1928 by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Tucker, who purchased the work from Hopper's dealer, Frank K. M. Rehn. The Tuckers bequeathed the painting to their son, who later sold it to Lawrence Fleischman. Fleischman in turn sold the work back to the Rehn Gallery, from whom the Currier Museum of Art purchased the work in 1962.
VSD
REFERENCES
Lloyd Goodrich. Edward Hopper. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1971.
Virginia M. Mecklenburg, with Contributions by Margaret Lynn Ausfeld. Edward Hopper: The Watercolors. Ex. cat. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1999.
"A Watercolor by Edward Hopper." Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin, January 1963, n.p.
Although Hopper had been familiar with watercolor through his work as a commercial illustrator, it was not until 1923 that he began to employ it extensively in his painting. Settling in Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the summer of that year, Hopper focused on the quiet streets and Victorian architecture of the old town. Fascinated, he returned for several summers afterward, depicting Gloucester scenes and gaining a reputation for the candid realism of his portrayals. Critics have since ranked Hopper's Gloucester watercolors among the first expressions of the artist's mature work of the 1920s.
An early and fine example, the Currier's House on Middle Street exhibits many of the salient features of Hopper's classic style. The painting depicts a late-nineteenth-century Gloucester home, stark under bright sunlight and devoid of human presence. Typical of Hopper's architectural studies, the subject is cropped, giving it an altered appearance that compels the viewer to examine its details more closely. In a similar vein, the house almost entirely fills the picture, pushing aside elements of setting and context that could distract the viewer from the visual interplay of form, light, and shadow. Yet while many of Hopper's concerns are formal in nature, he nevertheless infuses his subject with an ineffable sense of loneliness and desolation. The aura of bleakness in House on Middle Street and many other works is characteristic of Hopper and lends a poetic quality to banal subjects that would, in the hands of other artists, seldom rise above the level of simple illustration.
House on Middle Street was originally acquired in November 1928 by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Tucker, who purchased the work from Hopper's dealer, Frank K. M. Rehn. The Tuckers bequeathed the painting to their son, who later sold it to Lawrence Fleischman. Fleischman in turn sold the work back to the Rehn Gallery, from whom the Currier Museum of Art purchased the work in 1962.
VSD
REFERENCES
Lloyd Goodrich. Edward Hopper. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1971.
Virginia M. Mecklenburg, with Contributions by Margaret Lynn Ausfeld. Edward Hopper: The Watercolors. Ex. cat. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1999.
"A Watercolor by Edward Hopper." Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin, January 1963, n.p.
Exhibition
1963 University Art Gallery, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, "Edward Hopper." April 20 - May 19. 1966 MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, For medal ceremony. Aug. 27, 1966.
1976-1977 DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, "Americans Illuminate: Watercolor Painting 1870 -1930." Dec. 12, 1976 - Feb. 6, 1977.
1972 York Institute, Saco, ME, "American Landscapes and Seascapes 1900-1950." July - Oct.
1973 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Four MacDowell Medalists: Nevelson, Calder, Hopper, O'Keeffe." June 30 - July 29.
1974 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "American Art Since 1914." June 15 - Sept. 8.
1978 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "By the Side of the Road." June 24 - Oct. 22, cat. no. 8.
1979 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Friends of the Currier Gallery of Art: 20 Years of Acquisition." Jan. 12 - Feb. 25.
1980 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Watercolors from the Permanent Collection." March 3 - May 4.
1982 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Masterworks by Artists of New England." April 3 - May 16.
1984 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Friends of The Currier Gallery of Art: 25 Years of Acquisitions." Jan. 8 - Feb. 12.
1987 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Watercolors from the Permanent Collection." May 19 - July 19.
1989 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Glistening Washes: American Watercolors from the Permanent Collection." May 9 - July 9.
1994 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Brush to Paper: Masterpieces of American Watercolor from the Currier." March 8 - May 15.
2010 Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH, "From Homer to Hopper: American Watercolor Masterworks from the Currier Museum of Art." March 6 - June 7.
Your current search criteria is: Object is "House on Middle Street, Gloucester".