Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer exhibits open at Art Institute 

By Kay McKinlay Ford
and Anne M. Nordhaus-Bike 

The heralded painting Nighthawks by American realist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) returns home to the Art Institute to join one of the largest exhibits of the artist’s work outside New York City in nearly 30 years. Alongside this much anticipated show, the museum is celebrating another iconic American painter, Winslow Homer (1836-1910), with a rare look at his mastery of water-based media in Watercolors by Homer: The Color of Light. Both shows open at the Art Institute Saturday, Feb. 16, and run through Saturday, May 10.

Edward Hopper features 90 oil paintings, prints, and watercolors spanning Hopper’s six-decade career and concentrating on his most notable achievements from 1925 to 1950. The show “will prove to be one of the defining presentations of his work for decades to come,” according to Judith Barter, the exhibition’s co-curator.”

The private, brooding Hopper distinguished himself by capturing quiet, solitary moments of people’s lives, reflecting on loneliness and monotony in an honest and personal way. He probed emotional distance within relationships, the stillness of nature, and private reflections in public places using compositions that seem like a quick look out a moving train or a frozen yet fleeting moment in time. Fascinated with light, he often painted subjects who were looking out windows or viewed from the outside looking within.

The show includes pieces justly famous for his unrivaled view of the ordinary, such as Automat (1927), Drug Store (1927), Early Sunday Morning (1930), and New York Movie (1939). It begins with early paintings and prints introducing his signature subjects and revealing his start as an American student in Paris, where he found his voice studying the French Impressionists, and tracing his training with mentor and Ashcan School leader Robert Henri, one of the fathers of American Realism. Hopper went his own way as an artist, unaware of contemporaries such as Matisse and Picasso, who were in Paris at the same time. Of his ability to follow what he believed, he later said, “Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this life will result in his personal vision of the world.”

Returning from Europe, Hopper settled in New York’s Greenwich Village; most of the show highlights work created there. During years of study and struggle for recognition, he worked as a commercial illustrator to earn a living. Hopper finally made his first sale in 1913 at the groundbreaking Armory Show in New York, which brought together works by American artists and all the leading European modernists. In 1920 he had his first solo exhibition but reaped no income from it.

The tide turned at age 42 when he married the 40-year-old Jo Nivison, who became his devoted manager. His next solo show was a sellout. As the couple’s relationship matured, so did his work: in his mid-forties he found an audience and accolades for his highly original depictions of Manhattan apartments, restaurants, theaters, offices, and picturesque coastal life in Maine and Cape Cod.

Hopper’s work speaks to the viewers not only through his subjects but via his meticulous study of light, use of strong horizontals in his compositions, and muted yet lush colors. They also reveal his love of American movies and literature in their understated yet dramatic mood. Quintessentially yet uniquely American, Hopper found his artistic voice in the two dimensional world of paint and print and eventually became one the 20th century’s most popular realists. Testifying to art’s power, he once said, “If you could say it in words; there’d be no reason to paint.”

Like Hopper, Winslow Homer was intensely private but became a unique voice in American painting and earned fame in his lifetime by following his inner call rather than artistic fashion. Unlike Hopper, he had little formal art training, however. Nevertheless, he created sunny and accomplished early oil paintings showing Americans at leisure, such as the Art Institute’s charming Croquet Scene (1866), and produced his acclaimed signature oils of nature’s rugged power, such as the museum’s The Herring Net (1885) and Coast of Maine (1893).

Yet his greatest accomplishment—and strongest influence—came with the nearly 700 watercolors he painted between 1873 and 1905. His lack of art schooling allowed him to experiment freely and relentlessly with this notoriously difficult water medium and grow into America’s most original and independent watercolorist. Along the way, he created vivid, luminous paintings such as The Water Fan (1898/1899) and After the Hurricane, Bahamas (1899).

Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light displays 130 watercolors, oils, drawings, and prints to explore Homer’s evolution as a watercolorist. As the most comprehensive look at his water works in decades, it reflects years of painstaking research on the Art Institute’s Homer holdings by curators, conservators, and scientists. Their efforts show how the artist’s seemingly instinctive, immediate images actually resulted from patient preparation and a willingness to each painting take on a life of its own, with the developing image guiding his decisions instead of forcing the painting to conform to a preconceived idea.

“A much richer picture of Winslow Homer as a practicing artist emerges from this exhibition,” said Martha Tedeschi, the show’s curator. “Homer’s watercolors have often been characterized as free, spontaneous images captured outdoors during fishing trips or in moments of leisure. [M]any of them do have that feeling—which is exhilarating. But…we found…that he often put a great deal of thought…into his watercolors, sometimes changing his mind and making radical alterations.”

Because it was portable and dried quickly, watercolor “was the artist’s favorite way to experiment with new ideas about color and light, two of his central preoccupations,” Tedeschi added. “In many ways, Homer’s watercolors reveal him at his most modern, most daring, and most passionate moments. They also speak movingly about his love of nature and offer profound insights into humanity’s place in it.”

The exhibit unfolds in thematic groupings that focus on the places Homer painted: Maine's rocky, lonely coast, the Adirondack Mountains’ waterways teeming with color and life, and the Caribbean’s and Florida’s dazzling sunshine. Along the way, it reveals why he remains both beloved and influential nearly a century after his death.

Edward Hopper and Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light require a dated, timed ticket for admission. During February, tickets cost only $10, $5 for children; after that, the cost is $20 for adults, $8 for children older than five, and $17 for students, seniors, and Chicago residents with ID. Exhibit admission includes admission to the rest of the museum. Tickets can be purchased at the museum, by phone at (312) 930-4040, or online; extra fees apply to phone and online purchases.

            The Art Institute of Chicago is located at 111 S. Michigan Ave. Call (312) 443-3600 or visit www.artic.edu.

 

ART

Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), 400 S. Peoria St. See the film-based project Black Iron Vatican by Andy Roche in February. The exhibition  features two interrelated films: one, a travelogue depicting Leftist Catholics on their way to a military location, and the other, a low budget sci-fi film. For more information visit www.uic.edu, call (312) 996-6114, or visit www.feeltankchicago.net.

            National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St., presents Horns, Hooves, Wings, Fins, and Tails in February. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org or call (312) 738-1503.

National Vietnam Veterans Museum, 1801 S. Indiana Ave., exhibits the work of Jeanine Hill-Soldner in Memories of an Era: Reflections of Our Time through February. Call (312) 326-0270 or visit www.nvvam.org for details.

            Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, 618 S. Michigan Ave., presents The New Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation, which explores contemporary views of Jewish identity. Visit www.spertus.edu or call (312) 322-1700 for details.

           

MUSEUMS

Adler Planetarium, 1300 S. Lake Shore Dr., invites visitors to see the total lunar eclipse on Wednesday, Feb. 20, from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m.—the only such eclipse until December 2010. Visitors can view the eclipse through telescopes, talk to astronomers, and stop at an education stall. Visit www.adlerplanetarium.org or call (312) 922-STAR for details.

Chinese-American Museum, 238 W. 23rd St., presents Great Wall to the Great Lakes: Chinese Immigration to the Midwest. This exhibition features the history of Chinese immigrants to the U.S, exclusion laws enforced upon the Chinese, and reasons for moving to various parts of this country. Mini replicas of a Chinese restaurant, grocery store, and hand laundry highlight early immigrants’ livelihoods. Call (312) 949-1000 or visit www.ccamuseum.org.

Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr., offers The Secrets of Collections: Rock Hounds, a family workshop, on Saturday, Feb. 16, 10 to 11 a.m. Discover how scientists use museum collections. The cost is $5, $3 for members. For information call (866) Field-03 or visit www.fieldmuseum.org.

Museum Science and Industry, 57th St. and Lake Shore Dr., continues the Black Creativity program with The Magic and Science Cinema and Television. Guests can explore African-Americans’ past and present in front of and behind the camera while learning about challenges and rewards of working in this highly visible field. General admission is free on Friday, Feb. 29. For more information call (773) 753-6230 or visit www.msichicago.org.

 

MUSIC

Chicago Chorale, Holy Family Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., performs Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Saturday, March 15, at 7 p.m. Advance admission is $18 general or $10 for students (or $20 or $12 at the door.)  For tickets call (773) 306-6195.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 220 S. Michigan Ave, performs Ainadmar (Fountain of Tears), a mix of flamenco, tango, and rhapsodic melody telling the story of an ancient well near Granada, Spain, that was the site of a brutal murder in the Spanish Civil War. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, Feb. 7 through 9, at 8 p.m. and Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 7:30 p.m. Call (312) 294-3000.

            Sherwood Conservatory of Music, 1312 S. Michigan Ave., invites all to Sundays at Sherwood. On Sunday, Feb. 17, hear soprano Rebecca Schorsch and pianist Laura Fenster. For more information call (312) 427-6267, ext. 100, or visit www.sherwoodmusic.org.

           

THEATER

            UIC Department of Performing Arts-College of Architecture and the Arts, 1040 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607, invites all to The Secret Rapture by David Hare, directed by Lou Contey and running Friday, Feb. 22, through Sunday, March 2. Call (312) 996-2977 or visit www.uic.edu/depts/adpa/theaterpages/thater-performances.htm for details.