One of my favorite artists is Edward Hopper. In design class, I chose one of his paintings for an assignment in analyzing design elements. During the analysis, I realized the brilliance of the layouts of his paintings and drawings. (On the left is one of his most popular paintings titled "Nighthawks.")
However, he's not the Hopper that I want to share with you. The Hopper I have in mind is Mrs. Edward Hopper AKA Jo Hopper. Since she was also an artist, she was familiar with the intimacy of the artist-model relationship. In her marriage she was having none of that. So, from their 1924 marriage to his death in 1967, she was his only female model.
Why would this matter to Edward's art? Answer: Since Jo was his only model, we can view the female form in its stages of aging. The first image below was completed in 1944 and the other two are from 1954 and 1963, respectively.
What are your observations of Edward paintings of Jo over the 20-year span? Does it seem fair that as an artist he was limited to only one female model for 45 years?
