This weekend marks the opening of Edward Hopper & Cape Ann: Illuminating an American Landscape, the highly anticipated exhibition of works by the critically acclaimed American artist during a turning point in his life and career when he came to Cape Ann from 1923 to 1928.
This major exhibition is the first dedicated to Hopper’s formative development on Cape Ann, marking the pivotal summer of 1923 when Edward Hopper and his future wife, Josephine “Jo” Nivison, visited Gloucester. Edward Hopper & Cape Ann opens on Hopper’s birthday, July 22, runs through October 16, 2023, and is presented in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, the major repository of the Hoppers’ work.
“Hopper gives us an extraordinary opportunity to tell Gloucester’s story as a significant and influential place for artistic inspiration and growth,” says Cape Ann Museum director Oliver Barker.
The exhibition features 66 works including paintings, drawings, and prints brought together from the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, National Gallery of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and 28 other institutions and private lenders to tell the story of Hopper’s formative years when he experimented with his painting technique, met his future wife, and embarked on a legendary career.
The exhibition includes 57 works by Edward Hopper, seven by Jo Hopper, and one by their teacher Robert Henri.
This once-in-a-generation exhibition and the accompanying catalog are curated by nationally recognized curator and former museum director, Elliot Bostwick Davis, PhD. “Despite painting in Gloucester in 1912 and in Maine for six more summers, Hopper initially struggled to find a distinctive artistic voice,” writes Davis. “Hopper understood that Gloucester, familiar from his earlier trip in 1912, was perhaps his last chance to make a name for himself as a painter at the age of 41.”
Another major aspect of the Cape Ann Museum exhibition is the 224-page catalog, published by Rizzoli Electa in hard and softcover editions. This publication, which shares the exhibit’s title, Edward Hopper & Cape Ann, tells the largely ignored but significant origin story of Edward Hopper’s years in and around Gloucester, Massachusetts – a period and place that imbued Hopper’s paintings with a clarity and purpose that had eluded his earlier work. The book description reads: “the success of Hopper’s Gloucester watercolors transformed his work in all media and set the stage for his monumental career.”
The book will be distributed nationally and internationally and is available at the Cape Ann Museum Store which is also the exclusive vendor of the soft cover edition.
Edward Hopper & Cape Ann will be on view at the museum’s downtown campus in Gloucester and is accompanied by a robust six-part lecture series as well as a day-long symposium to be held on Saturday, September 30, 2023.
Timed-entry tickets will be required and are on sale at capeannmuseum.org. Admission, which includes both Edward Hopper & Cape Ann and general museum entry, $23 for adults; $18 for Cape Ann residents, seniors, and students, and free for youth under 18.