ART GALLERY - Edward Hopper

(click to enlarge)
Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967), the best-known American realist of the inter-war period and one of my favourits. The Lighthouse at Two Lights, 1929, oil in canvas.

In "The Lighthouse at Two Lights" Hopper isolated the dramatic silhouette of the 120-foot-high lighthouse tower and adjoining Coast Guard station against the open expanse of blue sky. Set on a rocky promontory in Cape Elizabeth, Maine — though no water is visible in the painting — the architecture is bathed in bright sunlight offset by dark shadows.
Since 1914 Hopper had regularly summered in Maine, and this picture is one of three oils and several watercolors that he did of this site during summer 1929. To Hopper, the lighthouse at Two Lights symbolized the solitary individual stoically facing the onslaught of change in an industrial society. The integrity and clarity of his work made Hopper a quiet force in American art for forty years and one of America's most popular artists.