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Lot Essay
Between 1915 and 1923, Edward Hopper focused primarily on printmaking and produced a substantial body of work that underscores his unique vision as the leading American artist of his generation.
The present drawing serves as a highly finished compositional study for the etching, House on a Hill (also titled The Buggy) of 1920. From the drawing to the first state of the etching, Hopper has made only minor changes to the scene. In the print version, the artist has added a small figure approaching the doorway to the barn at left center, added curtains to the first floor window of the house, and removed the whip from the driver of the buggy. The rendering of line in the drawing, seen in the intricate rooftop and eaves, demonstrates Hopper's unrivaled draftsmanship. Furthermore, the strength of form and composition anticipates the magnificent architectural renderings of light and shadow that would come to define Hopper's career.
Of Hopper's interest in architecture, Lloyd Goodrich wrote, "He liked the spare New England character...the white wooden houses and churches...Like every realist, Hopper loved character, and these varied structures were exactly characterized as a portrait painter's sitters. And above all, he loved the play of sunlight and shadows on their forms, the way a white-painted clapboard wall looked under the baking sun...Hopper was painting an honest portrait of an American town, with all its native character, its familiar ugliness and beauties...He preferred American architecture in its unashamed provincial phases, growing out of the character of the people." (Edward Hopper, New York, 1967, pp. 53-4)
House on a Hill: Drawing for the Etching is a precursor to Hopper's watercolors of Gloucester painted three years later in the summer of 1923, which explore the unique, vernacular architecture of the town and won the artist critical acclaim. Goodrich wrote that these watercolors were the first depictions of "houses and streets that were to become his first generally known type of subject--for a while, one might say, his trademark." (Edward Hopper)
The present drawing serves as a highly finished compositional study for the etching, House on a Hill (also titled The Buggy) of 1920. From the drawing to the first state of the etching, Hopper has made only minor changes to the scene. In the print version, the artist has added a small figure approaching the doorway to the barn at left center, added curtains to the first floor window of the house, and removed the whip from the driver of the buggy. The rendering of line in the drawing, seen in the intricate rooftop and eaves, demonstrates Hopper's unrivaled draftsmanship. Furthermore, the strength of form and composition anticipates the magnificent architectural renderings of light and shadow that would come to define Hopper's career.
Of Hopper's interest in architecture, Lloyd Goodrich wrote, "He liked the spare New England character...the white wooden houses and churches...Like every realist, Hopper loved character, and these varied structures were exactly characterized as a portrait painter's sitters. And above all, he loved the play of sunlight and shadows on their forms, the way a white-painted clapboard wall looked under the baking sun...Hopper was painting an honest portrait of an American town, with all its native character, its familiar ugliness and beauties...He preferred American architecture in its unashamed provincial phases, growing out of the character of the people." (Edward Hopper, New York, 1967, pp. 53-4)
House on a Hill: Drawing for the Etching is a precursor to Hopper's watercolors of Gloucester painted three years later in the summer of 1923, which explore the unique, vernacular architecture of the town and won the artist critical acclaim. Goodrich wrote that these watercolors were the first depictions of "houses and streets that were to become his first generally known type of subject--for a while, one might say, his trademark." (Edward Hopper)