It was quite an event! Art lovers from across the nation and beyond flocked to Chicago. We found a low cost flight to Midway and a hotel deal at the Loop's famous Silversmith Hotel, just a short stroll to the Chicago Art Institute.

Edward Hopper did not do self portraits often. He preferred painting exterior and interior spaces with light and shadow, sometimes alone, and other times with with solitary anonymous figures. Solitude was what Hopper was really all about.

The 1903 self portrait above may have been done while Edward Hopper was a student under the tutelage of William Merritt Chase. The self portrait from the late 1920's shows Hopper in a contemplative moment in a nondescript and unexciting setting. This portrait shows Hopper much like the figures he pictured in many of his paintings. Critics wonder why he painted himself wearing a hat and tie as if he were on his way to an appointment, but no narrative accompanied the painting, and any such interpretation is speculative.

To the right is a photo portrait by Arnold Newman. I believe Newman really knew and understood Edward Hopper, probably consulting with Hopper on the setting and composition of this picture.

As in so many of his paintings, the interior space is emphasized with a singular figure just part of the scene. Here, Hopper is seen seated through the doorway, part of the background. Next to him is a small bookshelf containing a tiny reading lamp and telephone.

If Arnold Newman wanted to fill his camera with Edward Hopper's image, he could have easily done it. Hopper was an imposingly handsome figure, 6' 5" tall with a serious but kind face worthy of a close-up. But he showed Hopper as Hopper thought of himself, a barely noticeable solitary presence, not a dominating figure.

Hopper was keenly aware of space, and he knew his place within it. Hopper was one never to bend reality to his will. He never wanted to put his brand on anything or make anything his own. Rather, Hopper considered himself to be an observer who saw himself as an unassuming resident in the realty of his surroundings.

This 2008 exhibition was my first real introduction to Edward Hopper, and he's been a joy to discover ever since. Instead of blowing his own horn striving to make his own sound get noticed, Hopper was an exquisite listener, attuned to the music around him, the dynamics of light and shadow, and the importance of quietly listening to his own soul.

Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, New York. He lived to be 84 and died in Manhattan on May 15, 1967.

His parents nurtured his interest in art, supplying him with art supplies, instruction booklets and illustrated books. Intellectually, he loved Ralph Waldo Emerson, reading him over and over again. He studied art with Robert Henri of the "Ashcan School" and William Merritt Chase. His friends and artistic peers included John Sloan, George Bellows and Rockwell Kent. He modeled his style after French Impressionists Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

In 1914, Edward Hopper was a struggling unknown 32 year old artist. Relying on his memories of a Parisian outdoor cafe, Hopper composed Soir Bleu four years after his return from Paris.

The figures are static and frozen. The man with a hat and cigarette is a pimp, the woman a prostitute, a Bohemian wearing a beret with a cigarette and a military man with epaulets are seated across from a circus clown. The clown with a cigarette was thought by art critic Gail Levin to be a self portrait of Hopper. The couple in evening attire represent the bourgeoisie. None of the figures seem to have any reason or desire to associate with any of the other figures. These people share the street side cafe scene, but choose to remain alien from one another.

Hopper painted Deck of Beam Trawler at the age of 41 in Gloucester, Massachusetts and continued to visit New England during the summers, escaping Manhattan's summer heat.

In 1923, at the suggestion of his future wife Jo Nivison, Hopper tried his hand at watercolor. The result was The Mansard Roof. This watercolor painting was entered in a competition at the Brooklyn Museum. It won and was purchased by the museum. Edward Hopper had arrived! He was now seen as an up and coming American realist. Haskell's House is a similar scene of a Gloucester Victorian done a year later.

Hopper continued in New England during the summers the rest of his career.

Hopper's Lighthouse and Buildings, Portland Head is one of his most reproduced works.

His Sun on Prospect Street seems like an ordinary street scene, but it is Hopper through and through. His economy of elements shows just enough of this scene to create a sense of shared experience. It pulls us in. None of us were ever there, yet we all feel like we remember it well.

Cape Cod Evening was Hopper's commentary on the loss of rural America. In the early 1930's, three quarters of America lived on farms with kerosene lamps, and only one in three farms had running water. Here, in 1939, this painting comments on how American has radically changed. During the depression, people moved to the cities. This painting shows newly affluent city dwellers visiting this rural Victorian house with an overgrown lawn, with their city dwelling dog. The dog seems hesitant as he comes to terms with a new world he's never seen before.

Seven A.M. shows a storefront early in the morning. There are no customers and no proprietor. Wares are nondescript and not in abundance. We don't know what kind of store it is. The greenery to the left leads us to believe it is summer, the busy season, but we see no evidence of business.

According to Edward Hopper, Second Story Sunlight was "an attempt to paint sunlight as white with almost no yellow pigment in the white." It is believed his wife Josephine posed for both women in the picture, but his neighbors believe one of the women pictured was their adolescent stepdaughter, Kim.

Summer Interior was painted in 1909 when Hopper would have been a young man of 27. The painting appears to be a private scene we should not have the privilege to observe. It is of a young woman in what appears to be a moment of despair. She's nude from the waist down. She appears to have allowed herself to slide down from the bed on a bedsheet. We see her seated on the floor, her arm supports her on the bed with her head down, hiding her face. It appears she may have had have had a lover's quarrel. After her lover left, in the aftermath, she is left alone gathering her feelings and thoughts.

Night Shadows is a famous black and white print by Hopper. It gives a bird's eye perspective of a New York street corner and a lone walking man about to cross a long shadow in his path. We view this unknown solitary man, wondering about his destination at such a late hour.

New York Corner (aka Corner Saloon) 1913 is an early work of Hopper. It has multiple nameless and unidentifiable figures standing on a corner in front of a stark red colored building with distant smokestacks in the smoky foggy distance. The painting shows the figures alone, not interacting, in a dismal urban setting. The season appears to be winter as the figures are wearing overcoats and hats.

New York Restaurant 1922 shows a gentleman facing us from his table in a noon-time New York restaurant. We see only his dining partner's back, a woman wearing a brown coat and reddish hat. A waitress with a large white apron with a huge bow in back slightly bending over a nearby table. Hopper was interesting in showing the atmosphere surrounding this gentleman having a luncheon date in the moment. He said of this painting, "In a specific and concrete sense the idea was to attempt to make visual the crowded glamour of a New York restaurant during the noon hour. I am hoping that ideas less easy to define have, perhaps, crept in also."

In Hopper's Apartment Houses, we are invited to peer through an open window of a bedroom situated at the corner of an apartment building. We see a rather plump maid making a bed. Just beyond we see another apartment building with a window with its partially drawn curtains. This neighboring apartment building is just a few feet beyond. This painting is a peek into a slice of American urban life, where people and their private lives take place in close crowded proximity to others pursuing their private lives. This is the theme in many of Hopper's paintings which he continued to produce the rest of his career.

Sunday shows a lone shop keeper, seated outside his stark storefront, lost in his own private thoughts. There are no customers or window shoppers, just the shopkeeper seated on the empty wooden walk in front of his store. The colors of the buildings are somber, the shop windows show no wares for sale.

Eleven A.M. shows a solitary woman, seated in an easy chair by an open window, peering outward. She's nude, but not exposed. She's wearing only shoes in the late morning. We have few clues about why she is as she is in the middle of the day. The other window of the room appears to have its curtains drawn. This painting has similar tones to those used in Hopper's Summer Interior done seventeen years earlier in 1909.

The City shows a New York scene not in any tourist brochure. It's a painting of nowhere in particular. What is striking is its emptiness with only a few tiny sketchy figures visible. Where are the crowds? The emptiness and quietness of the scene leads us to think the city is abandoned or its inhabitants are still indoors at a very early hour. The painting seems to be a stage backdrop for a drama yet to take place.

Two on the Aisle 1927 shows us the show before the show. We see a couple in formal dress, probably husband and wife, settling in their front orchestra seats before a performance. She's seated, adjusting her coat in her chair while her husband stands next to her in his tuxedo, peering up into something of interest in the balcony. Seated nearby in the side boxes is a woman in a red formal dress reading the printed program for the performance. None of the figures are interacting, just quietly passing the moments before the show.

Automat has long been one of my favorites of Hopper's paintings. In 1927, automats were a wonder of the modern world, a place where you put money in and the food is served, no personal interaction needed. Given Hopper's penchant for painting scenes of people in solitary moments, i's a wonder Hopper didn't paint more automat scenes. Here, a woman sits near the front of the Automat, sipping her cup of coffee late at night. The woman, looking down thoughtfully at her coffee, is wearing a felt cloche hat with a wide floppy brim, popular in 1927. Her green coat suggests a cooler time of year. She's alone. We do see two long lines of domed ceiling lights reflected on the automat's glass storefront. As the reflections of the ceiling lights recede into the automat's interior, we get the sense this woman is contemplating the long road she has yet to travel.

Hopper described Early Sunday Morning as "almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue." The elements of the composition are reduced to the the absolute basics. Window lettering is illegible and any architectural ornamentation is loosely sketched. There are no figures, only hints of habitation, such as the different levels of the window shades. In New York, Seventh avenue runs north-south and the shadows would fall east-west. Hopper changed the natural direction of the shadows, consistent with his horizontal composition.

Room in New York shows a clean and simplified interior setting. A man and woman, dressed and ready to go out, are absorbed in their own solitary worlds, he in his newspaper and she fingering the keyboard of the piano. Wordlessly and separately, they pass the moments before their departure.

Another of my favorite Hopper paintings is New York Movie. Hopper's wife Jo served as the model. The usherette is catching a private solitary moment while theater patrons sit in the dark viewing the feature film. The stairway partially obscured by the red curtain seems to promise the possibility of escape. The darkened theater contrasts with the dimly lit passageway where the usherette stands below a wall sconce lamp. We get the feeling her thoughts are far away, and time for her is passing very slowly.

Summertime was painted in the early years of World War II. After Pearl Harbor and Hitler's steam rolling over Europe, America was hitting back. After years of the Great Depression, America was full of resolve for winning the war, and for an ascendant period of prosperity. The young woman with a stylish see-through dress appears to be ready and waiting. It's Hopper's way of saying good times are on the horizon.

Morning in the City shows a nude woman peering out an open window into the morning's early light. She may have just risen or bathed and we get the feeling she is gearing up to meet the day's challenges. We feel she's alone and unobserved. Like people everywhere, we all greet the day alone; we decide how we want to deal with what faces us in the day. Perhaps, she's pondering a new direction or a change.

Morning Sun is similar to Morning in the City. Here, a woman dressed in a nightgown looks to the morning sun through an enormous window. A building with a long row of apartment windows is visible on the outside with a water tower beyond them. We're focused on the figure in this painting, but each of those apartments could be the location of a similar scene. The woman's posture is relaxed and she seems to be contemplatively looking toward her day.

Sun in an Empty Room was painted by Hopper at age 81, one of his last paintings. Either this is empty space about to be filled or space recently vacated. Given Hopper's age, its as if he is announcing his departure from the stage. The life which had occurred within these rooms is gone; those holding the memories are gone too. The life these rooms would host in the future has not yet arrived. It's an empty room full of nothing but bright sunlight and shadow.

Both of these photo portraits are similar. They are of Edward Hopper, but not like classical portraits. They are more like still life paintings, with Hopper being but one of the subjects in the still life. Both of these scenes have a wood burning stove, a place of energy and warmth, both possess vertical, horizontal and angular lines. Hopper is solitary in both, seemingly serious but giving no clue to what he is pondering. It's much like his paintings with himself as the subject, a solitary person within a an unspectacular setting.

The paintings below were done by Jon Blanchette, a mid century Northern California painter and teacher. All of the paintings below are offered for sale by Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, and prices have been reduced. Just click on the images below to link to our Jon Blanchette page on our website.

Jon Blanchette was born in Somerset, England, and came to America, first living in Michigan. Showing artistic talents, he pursued his art training at the Pittsburg Art Institute. In the 1930's, Jon and his artist wife Jean, a fine sculptor and portrait painter, moved to LA.

He worked in architectural design, interior decorating, and as a technical illustrator for engineering firms. But, he also found some time to work in show business too, designing sets for shows in New York and for Fox Studios in Hollywood.

In 1948, he and his wife moved up the coast to Aptos, CA, where he painted and taught. During summers, he would hold workshops in Mendocino and Carmel. He was noted to be a master of the limited palette, and has held many one man shows in California.

Sculptor Tony Dow has died. After retiring from his acting, directing and producing career, Tony turned to expressing himself through sculpture. In 2008, we featured Tony in our gallery newsletter for being chosen to have his works displayed in Paris at the Carrousel du Louvre. Works were chosen for a juried competition by the Society Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Tony entered a bronz abstract of a woman holding a shield entitled Unarmed Warrior.

Tony began acting as a child, and like other child actors, it proved to be a blessing and a curse. He gained from the early fame, but struggled to define himself after his role of "Wally" on Leave it to Beaver ended. But some things can't be lived down. Regarding his sculpture being at the Louvre, The SF Chronicle burned him with a headline "Gee Wally, how'd you get to the Louvre?"

Tony said of his sculpture, "My sculpture derives from whatever has passed through or by me; a culmination of my experiences; what I’ve seen, what I’m drawn to. The figures are abstract and not meant to represent reality but rather the truth of the interactions as I see and feel them. I find the wood in the hills of Topanga Canyon and each piece evolves from my subconscious. I produce limited editions of nine bronzes using the lost wax process from molds of the original burl sculpture."

Unarmed Warrior

PLAN AHEAD! Upcoming exhibits, open studios: Linda Sorensen will be among the select artists featured by Sonoma Coast Art at Jenner Inn in Jenner on our beautiful Coast, the weekend of September 11-12. And Sonoma County Art Trails, a juried open studios program of Sebastopol Center for the Arts, will be held September 24-25 and October 1-2 (natural events permitting). Linda thanks with great affection the 400 people who came in early June to her artist studio at Atelier One in Graton, during Art @ the Source 2022.

Catalogs: Sonoma County open studios events do not reuse past mailing lists. And artist sabbaticals and other reasons may mean your address on a past list could be missed in the future. If Linda does not already have your mailing address, and if you wish to receive a printed Collector's Guide for Art Trails, or next year's AATS catalog, please let us know. Linda and most of the participating artists are available by appointment year-round, which is a reason to hold onto your copy for a while. Catalogs remain online for the whole year until the next catalog takes its place, on the website for the event.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

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