Ivo Kranzfelder Libri

Study of the work of the American realist painter

This volume presents a survey of the painting of American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967). While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life, depicting the loneliness of big-city people in canvas after canvas. Many of Hopper's pictures represent views of streets and roads, rooftops, abandoned houses, depicted in brilliant light that strangely belies the melancholy mood of the scenes. Hopper's paintings are marked by striking juxta-positions of color, and by the clear contours with which the figures are demarcated from their surroundings. His extremely precise focus on the theme of modern men and women in natural and man-made environments sometimes lends his pictures a mood of eerie disquiet.