Edward Hopper's Six Early Oils Revealed as Copies from Art Interchange Plates
Edward Hopper's six pre-art-school oil paintings, once believed to be originals, are actually reproductions sourced from the Art Interchange magazine. This revelation is presented in Louis Shadwick's biography, Edward Hopper: A Life, released by Yale University Press on 13 October in the US and 24 November in the UK. The pieces include Old Ice Pond at Nyack (1898–1900), which mimics Bruce Crane's A Winter Sunset; Rowboat in Rocky Cove (1895), derived from an anonymous watercolor; Country Road (circa 1896), replicating John Francis Murphy; Ships (circa 1898), inspired by Edward Moran; and Church and Landscape, from an unknown origin. Clipper Ship Being Towed by Tug imitates Fred Pansing's Stormy Voyage. It appears Hopper did not produce an original oil painting before 1900.
Key facts
- All six of Hopper's oils painted before art school are copies, not originals
- Old Ice Pond at Nyack copies Bruce Crane's A Winter Sunset
- Rowboat in Rocky Cove (1895) copies the anonymous watercolour Lake View
- Country Road copies John Francis Murphy; Ships copies Edward Moran's Marine View
- Clipper Ship Being Towed by Tug copies Fred Pansing's Stormy Voyage, published in the New York Recorder on 7 May 1893
- Reverend Arthayer R. Sanborn discovered the works in the Nyack attic in the late 1960s and titled them
- Source plates ran in Art Interchange between 1886 and 1891 with copying instructions
- Hopper may not have produced an original oil before entering the New York School of Art in autumn 1900
Entities
Artists
- Edward Hopper
- Bruce Crane
- John Francis Murphy
- Edward Moran
- Edgar Barnes Gilson
- Fred Pansing
- Reverend Arthayer R. Sanborn
- Louis Shadwick
- Kim Conaty
Institutions
- Yale University Press
- Art Interchange
- New York Recorder
- New York School of Art
- Courtauld Institute
- The Burlington Magazine
- Whitney Museum
- Heather James Fine Art
- New York Times
Locations
- Nyack
- United States
- Long Island
- Connecticut
- Athelstane
- Wisconsin
- New York
- London