Sheldon Museum of Art Main Content
Hopper, Room
Room in New York1932Oil on canvas29 9/32 × 36 5/8 × 1 1/4H-166.1936University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Anna R. and Frank M. Hall Charitable Trust
Edward HopperEdward Hopper observed the everyday lives of city dwellers in much of his work. In the important canvases painted between 1926 and 1932, he made use of single figures and couples to create a sense of thoughtful reticence and solitude. Eschewing the picturesque and the literal, Hopper’s pictures remain unexplained, without narrative, instead invoking a hermetically sealed world of emotion. In 1935 the artist remarked that the idea for Room in New York “was suggested by glimpses of lighted interiors seen as
I walked along the city streets at night.” Perhaps the most famous painting in Sheldon’s collection, Room in New York was purchased shortly after it was completed; the university justified the acquisition by presciently predicting that that Hopper would “undoubtedly be regarded as [a] leader among American artists in future years.”
American
18821967New York, NYNyack, NY
Edward HopperEdward Hopper observed the everyday lives of city dwellers in much of his work. In the important canvases painted between 1926 and 1932, he made use of single figures and couples to create a sense of thoughtful reticence and solitude. Eschewing the picturesque and the literal, Hopper’s pictures remain unexplained, without narrative, instead invoking a hermetically sealed world of emotion. In 1935 the artist remarked that the idea for Room in New York “was suggested by glimpses of lighted interiors seen as
I walked along the city streets at night.” Perhaps the most famous painting in Sheldon’s collection, Room in New York was purchased shortly after it was completed; the university justified the acquisition by presciently predicting that that Hopper would “undoubtedly be regarded as [a] leader among American artists in future years.”
American
18821967New York, NYNyack, NY