Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer exhibits coming to Northeast PA

Famed American atists shows open at Misericordia University Jan. 21 DALLAS — The art of American master Edward Hopper will go on display beginning Jan. 21 in the Pauly Friedman Art Gallery at Misericordia University. The exhibition, “Edward Hopper: Early Impressions,” is a collection of Hopper’s early works in charcoal, pen and ink, pencil, and graphite. The exhibit, “Winslow Homer: Woodcut Prints,” and a display of recent paintings by Pennsylvania artist Michael Molnar will be on display in the adjacent MacDonald Art Gallery in Sandy and Marlene Insalaco Hall. The three exhibits will open with a free reception on Saturday, Jan. 21 from 5-8 p.m. and run through Feb. 11. Pauly Friedman Art Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; and Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Edward Hopper “Calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic” is how novelist John Updike described the works of Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Hopper has long been heralded as one of the greatest American painters for his mastery at painting light, his eloquent realism, and his unique sensitivity to modern American life. Yet his fame was late in coming — he did not sell a painting to a museum until he was more than 40 years old. Nonetheless, by that time he was a master draftsman, printmaker and illustrator. He also had created a body of summer work, much of it in watercolor, which fueled the more contemplative painting for which he would become especially well known. The exhibition, “Edward Hopper: Early Impressions,” includes some very early drawings including, “The Ivory Booth” from 1897 by a then 17-year-old Hopper. The Victorian flavored composition with a unique architectural setting provides a dramatic and romantic aura. The drawings in this exhibition illustrate the artistic style, integrity and insight of Hopper usually only seen through his paintings. Born in Nyack, N.Y., Hopper’s boyhood home, the Edward Hopper House Art Center, today serves as a non-profit community cultural center featuring exhibitions, workshops, lectures, performances and special events. In his early self-portraits, Hopper tended to represent himself as skinny, ungraceful and homely, and often depicted women dominating men in comic situations. Later in life, he depicted mostly women as figures in his paintings. In 1915, Hopper turned to etching and produced about 70 works, many of them urban scenes of both Paris and New York. In 1931, Hopper moved to the Greenwich Village section of New York City and soon received a commission to make some movie posters and handle publicity for a movie company. Though he did not like the illustration work, Hopper was a life-long devotee of the cinema and the theatre, both of which became subjects for his paintings. Hopper fared better than many other artists during the Great Depression. His stature took a sharp rise in 1931 when major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, paid thousands of dollars for his works. He sold 30 paintings that year, including 13 watercolors. The following year, he participated in the first Whitney Annual, and he continued to exhibit in every annual at the museum for the rest of his life. In 1933, the Museum of Modern Art gave Hopper his first large-scale retrospective. It was through the 1930s and early 1940s that Hopper produced many of his most important works including, “New York Movie” (1939), “Girlie Show” (1941), “Nighthawks” (1942), “Hotel Lobby” (1943), and “Morning in a City“ (1944). He was considered the best-known American realist when he died in New York City in 1967. Winslow Homer An American landscape painter and printmaker, Homer is considered one of the premier painters in 19th century American art. A native of Boston, Mass., his career as an illustrator began as an apprentice with a Boston commercial lithographer. He expanded his talents as a freelance artist and he contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines, such as “Ballou’s Pictorial” and “Harper’s Weekly.” His early works, mostly commercial engravings of urban and country social scenes, were characterized by clean outlines, simplified forms, dramatic contrast of light and dark, and lively figure groupings, qualities he continue to develop throughout his career. His quick success is attributed to his strong understanding of graphic design and his ability to adapt his designs to wood engraving. In 1859, he opened a studio in New York City, attended classes at the National Academy of Design and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel, who taught him the basics of painting. In 1859, he moved to New York City where began his career as a painter. On assignment for “Harper’s Weekly,” he visited the front during the Civil War and his first important paintings were of Civil War subjects. Moving to Gloucester, Mass., in 1873, he expanded his work and began to paint in watercolor. In 1875, he submitted his last drawing to “Harper's Weekly,’’ ending his career as an illustrator. He traveled widely in the 1870s in New York State, to Virginia, and to Massachusetts, and in 1881 he began a two-year stay in England, living in Cullercoats, near Newcastle. He returned to America in 1883, and he settled at Prout's Neck, Maine. He continued to travel widely to the Adirondacks, Canada, Bermuda, Florida and to the Caribbean, in all those places painting the watercolors upon which much of his later fame would be based. In 1890, he painted the first of the series of seascapes at Prout’s Neck that were the most admired of his late paintings in oil. Homer died in his Prout’s Neck studio in 1910. Michael Molnar Molnar was born in Hazleton, Pa. in 1948 and resides in nearby Weatherly, Pa. He is considered an academic painter in the traditional sense. Molnar has painted portraits and still life for more than 35 years. He is recognized for his attention to detail and strict adherence to the principles of the old masters, which allow him to paint quickly and flawlessly. He currently is a professor of painting and illustration at Luzerne County Community College. For more information about the Misericordia University Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, please contact 570- 674-6250 or log on to www.misericordia.edu/art.