In the exhibit "Edward Hopper and Urban Realism," at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts through Aug. 24, there's an etching by Hopper called "Night Shadows" (1921). The print depicts a dark and ominous night in the big city. A lone male figure shuffles along a deserted pavement, head down, shoulders hunched, harassed by harsh shadows and a menacing streetlight. Beneath this foreboding image — between the print's edition number and Hopper's signature — the artist wrote, "To My Wife."
An odd dedication. But then, Hopper and his wife Jo (also an artist) were "known for their wild fights," said Mary F. Francey, a longtime professor of 20th century art at the University of Utah and now a curator at the UMFA.
In "Lives of the Great 20th-Century Artists," Edward Lucie-Smith wrote, "Just before a trip to Mexico, Jo bit Hopper's hand to the bone." However, the author also emphasized that Jo's "presence was essential to Hopper's work — sometimes literally so, since she now modeled for all the female figures in his paintings."
While this engaging anecdote isn't discussed in the exhibit, other entertaining stories are — many in the same vein — and they will intrigue, enlighten and delight visitors. With nearly 70 works on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, "Edward Hopper and Urban Realism" is a missive on life in the big cities of early 20th century America, delivered through paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture.
As if the exhibit weren't exciting enough, for the first time, the UMFA has included audio guides as part of the viewing experience. The description of artwork is enhanced by the employment of period music, sound effects and erudite narration. Each audio player comes equipped with an adult and a children's version of the presentation.
"Urban Realism" in American art raised its head in the early 1900s, created by a group called the "Eight" — a band of painters who wanted to produce works capturing the new American identity born of industry in the cities. The Eight were "more concerned with truth than with beauty, and the real rather than the artificial," said Francey.
Eventually, the group of artists became known as the "Ashcan School." Led by Robert Henri, the group — now including several more artists who were once Henri's students, Edward Hopper being one — painted gritty urban scenes of the poor and disenfranchised in America. They dedicated themselves to breaking away from traditional European art standards and painting what they determined to be "real life."
The group's intent, however, was not to muckrake. They believed in the social issues they espoused. Four of the artists had begun their careers as newspaper illustrators and had continued using their skills for capturing spontaneous moments in their paintings of everyday events in the city.
Works in the exhibition were completed between 1900 and early 1950. One of the later pieces in the show is "New York Tenements," a moody painting of buildings sans people, by Franz Kline, an artist who would later go on to become one of the leading members of the Abstract Expressionist movement.
Other interesting works in the exhibit are Hopper's "Manhattan Bridge" (1925-26), Raphael Soyer's "Office Girls" (1936), Reginald Marsh's "Minsky's Chorus" (1935), Mahonri M. Young's sculpture "Groggy" (1926), and John Storr's precisionist sculpture "Forms in Space" (1924).
The paintings in "Edward Hopper and Urban Realism," by Hopper, Henri, George Bellows, John Sloan, Arthur Davies, Maurice Pendergast, Everett Shinn, George Luks, William Glackens, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella and more, are not major works by the artists, but they are sufficiently powerful to evoke reactions from museum visitors, helping them understand why this group of artists, and their work, became the first important American art movement of the 20th century.
The UMFA will present a film series on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. to explore the economic and sociopolitical context of the early 20th century. Admission to the film series is free to exhibition ticketholders and $2 for those without tickets.
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