Time Magazine profiled the late Edward Hopper earlier this month, upon the opening of a Hopper exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Hopper is often considered something of an antipode to Norman Rockwell - same country, time period and subject matter, but the mood is typically the opposite of Rockwell's warm and whimsical paintings and illustrations. And though Rockwell rendered his share of strong women (i.e. Rosie the Riveter), any casual observer of Hopper's figures will note that Hopper seemed even more fond of painting beefy women. Time's Richard Lacayo observes:
[Hopper] could be an awkward figure painter. His men can be as blocky as his lighthouses. And the women--what to make of his notion of eroticism, all those strapping females who manage to look both carnal and remote? A "hard muscular girl" is how someone described the typical Hopper woman, "sturdy of leg and breast, bulging in her clothes." True enough. But look at Second Story Sunlight, in which her face is a chalky mask with opaque brown lozenges for eyes. She never looks into yours and never will.
The exhibit will be in Boston through August 19, then on to Washington and Chicago.
