I bet you never noticed this in Hopper's most famous painting

[packman]

[Ocelot II]

1. He'd just finished reading No Exit.

[ironflange]

2. He was a real hothead!

[Me.]

3. I Do See A Door

Is it an exit out the back?

[GPV]

4. Kitchen, I think

[Me.]

6. Probably, But There's Usually An Exit through THe Kitchen

[GPV]

5. I just assumed it was out of frame

[Talitha]

19. Me too.

[electric_blue68]

22. That's what I thought, too.

[roamer65]

26. Same here.

[CaptainTruth]

28. Me too.

[Wounded Bear]

41. There's also no cash register...

I figured both were out of frame to the right.

[CTyankee]

63. There is a cash register but it can be seen through the window of the room across the street.

I think you can Google small sections of the painting. It is a tantalizing invitation to imagine that the male who is present at the bar might actually be planning a robbery.

[Hekate]

50. So did I. Really.

Gimme a cuppa joe, willya?

[betsuni]

56. Me too.

Out of frame where the cash register is.

[Demovictory9]

70. me too

[mobeau69]

7. Ever notice this in American Gothic?

The curtains in the upstairs window are the same material the farmer’s wife used to make her dress.

Saw the original Grant Wood in his studio in Cedar Rapids, IA. It was on loan from Chicago’s Art Institute. Pretty cool to actually see the original.

[PCIntern]

13. HEY! Didja know that the model for the man in that painting

was Wood's dentist?

Saw it in Chicago - weirdly breathtaking to see it live.

[bamagal62]

24. It is a beautiful painting. Chicago has some

Good ones!

[edhopper]

17. I think it is meant to be

his daughter, not wife.

And a similar pattern, but not the same fabric.

[SCantiGOP]

36. It is his daughter, not wife

[edhopper]

43. Isn't that what

I said?

[mobeau69]

58. Thanks for the correction. It is just similar but neat to learn about the flour sacks.

It was quite a few years ago when I saw it in CR. Thinking back now, it was on display in a newer museum separate from his old home/studio.

[edhopper]

65. I saw it

in a Woods show in NY at the Met or Whitney, can't remember which.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Not surprising. In the Depression years, flour was sold in cotton sacks printed in colorful patterns

You could tear out the seams of the sacks and make clothing (and curtains). Some even came with instructions on the bag!

[link:https://littlethings.com/family-and-parenting/flour-sack-dresses|

[dianaredwing]

34. My first home ec project

was an apron made from a flour sack. They didn't trust me with 'new' fabric.

[moonscape]

45. My parents escaped from Eastern Europe

to the US at the end of WWII. They spent the first couple of years on a farm with very little income and didn’t touch their savings until they got off of it. My parents used to tell me how they did that and one of the most memorable to me growing up was that my mother made my father’s briefs from potato sacks. One of them had a great bid red rooster on the rump.

[Hekate]

52. I bet your mom carefully placed that rooster!

[moonscape]

54. She did :)

[edhopper]

44. Not the same fabric

the pattern is similar. But different size circles and no dots.

Oimgpo/img]

[DFW]

57. I recognize that couple

They starred in that old TV ad for New Country Corn Flakes.

[Hekate]

51. Thrifty! Flour-sack material, no doubt. nt

[soothsayer]

8. I was expecting Bernie

[3Hotdogs]

9. in the diner which is reputed to be the model for the painting, the door exits onto 7th Avenue.

[Aristus]

11. Got a link?

Everything I've ever read about the painting and its setting, somewhere in Greenwich Village, hints that the location itself is fictitious, or that any corresponding diner in real life has been long-since demolished.

[smirkymonkey]

15. The diner itself was demolished, but the location was real. It was near where I lived in GV on the

corner of Greenwich Avenue, Seventh Avenue South and W. 11th Street (kind of a strange little crossroads).

[Celerity]

49. that cannot be the location of the diner which inspired the painting, because a gas station occupied

that lot from the 1930s to the 1970s


https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/opinion/05moss.html

[smirkymonkey]

59. It seems I was misinformed. My mistake.

Thanks for correcting me. I could have sworn that I was given the original information in good faith, but apparently not.

[Celerity]

60. oh, totally oki, I knew none of this before now

[Donkees]

20. Ten Reasons why 70 Greenwich Avenue at 11th Street just may have been the primary inspiration ...

... for Edward Hopper's Nighthawks:

https://www.popspotsnyc.com/nighthawks/

[malthaussen]

31. I've seen that building in person...

... and I had the same thought. Presumably it has not always been a florist.

-- Mal

[3Hotdogs]

47. I haven't been there in years.... we used to come to The Village in the 70's,

probably up to 1985.

As I recall, at that time, the building was a beauty salon. Then a clothing store. But the configuration did match the painting.


Another story-- as I said, wife and I would go to the village, maybe once or twice a month.. walk around, get supper, have a couple of beers at the White Horse or the Riviera (still there)-- whatever, then go home.

One time we were at an Italian restaurant about 200 ft off of 7th Avenue. Ordered stuff ---"The waiter looks like someone but I can't think of who.....

A few days later, "Daily News." Al Pacino just finished working as a waiter in Greenwich Village, preparation for a future role in his next film.

[malthaussen]

64. Friend and I visited the Village shortly after John Lennon was shot...

... she wanted a look at the apartment building where she'd lived in the early 60s. We went there, and according to the mailbox for her old pad, the occupant was... John Lennon.

-- Mal

[Aristus]

35. Wow! This is amazing stuff!

Thank you!

[Donkees]

62. In this photo you can easily imagine the diners living in this neighborhood:

Old photos indicate that the space has a history of being a "fountain"- type restaurant - one that has at times served soda ( presumably from a "fountain" ) and sandwiches (which one would eat presumable sitting down.

Below are several pictures of the "florist shop space" through the years.

In the 70's it said "soda-fountain-sandwich." In the 30's and 40's there was an Optimo cigar sign on it." In 1930 it read "Soda-Cigars-Fruit." And earlier than that it advertised "Murad" cigars.

Photo from 1930 - NYPL

"I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger." a quote by Hopper

https://www.popspotsnyc.com/nighthawks/

[PJMcK]

10. It's a fantastic work of art!

Twenty years ago, I was commissioned to create a musical revue of songs by the great American composer, Burton Lane. My collaborators and I set the scenario for the show using "Nighthawks" as the tableau. We had a cast of two men and two women, (we took a little liberty in that regard), and a four-piece band. The stage was designed and painted to resemble the scene in Hopper's diner. The theater actually let us paint the floor of the stage green! We chose post-World War Two as the time frame and it obviously takes place in a city.

In spite of good reviews, enthusiastic audiences and a sold-out and extended run, the executors of Lane's estate were unhappy with the show and it died on the vine. We never got a really good explanation for their decision but that's show biz, kids.

Nonetheless, we spent hours looking at the painting and imagining what was going on with the people in that late-night restaurant. It's a brilliant painting.

[Aristus]

12. What's your opinion of the emotional cast of the painting?

Every critic I've ever read (some obviously lazily borrowing the opinions of others) talk about alienation, urban isolation, loneliness, etc.

I first saw the painting as a young kid, and my first impression is that the diner was a bright, warm, welcome relief from the darkness of the deserted streets. And while the people inside the diner might not overflow with warm regard, there does seem to be a companionable feeling about all four figures.

The late-night counter guy might be happy for the company. The couple facing us may be having an inconsequential, but nevertheless pleasant conversation. The guy with his back to us might be lost in thought or idly contributing to the general conversation.

I always got a pleasant vibe from the scene...

[CTyankee]

27. I wrote about this in my book (formerly published here at DU)

My take:

"Nighthawks" reshaped what painting looked like in America, and created a visual language for a "way of seeing" middle-class existence and its underlying darkest fears and doubts. No wonder
it has been incessantly reproduced and often parodied.It becomes difficult to view this painting with fresh eyes."

I also quote Peter Schjeldahl, the great art critic at The New Yorker magazine: Hopper painted with reproducibility on his mind, as a new function and fate of images in his time. This is part of what makes him modern--and persistently misunderstood, as merely an illustrator. If Nighthawks is an illustration, a kick in the head is a lullaby."

I researched the location of this picture: the diner has been identified on Greenwich Avenue, in lower Manhattan, a street closed off in the 1960s to make way for the construction of the Twin Towers. My comment: "How Hopperesque."

[Hekate]

53. I looked at it as "A Clean Well-Lighted Place".When I was in college there were a couple of years...

...where I would spend hours walking in the dark. In order to give myself a destination, I headed for a 24-hour coffee shop on the main drag, where a poor and underaged college kid could get a “bottomless” cup of coffee for 25 cents, and sit undisturbed to write.

“Nighthawks” resonates with those memories.

PS: Is your book done now?

[CTyankee]

61. I can see why. Yours is a wonderful example of how meaningful Hopper's work is.

As to your question: yes, it is. and I am writing another which is about artists long sought to paint what is invisible: sound. Music, more specifically. It considers works of art expressing music in very different ways from the Ghent Altarpiece in 1432 to Roy Decarvara's photographic art of Coltrane on sax and other Harlem musicians back in the 50s and 60s. I hope to get it done by the end of the summer.

Thank you for asking.

[unblock]

14. They put the people in first then built the diner around them.

I mean, duh, people.

[Blue Owl]

16. Suddenly I got a hankerin' for a cup of coffee

[Paladin]

18. Love that painting. (nt)

[Notek]

21. For me;

it always makes me think of Kerouac and some of his mental images from "On The Road".

[electric_blue68]

23. Wow I never knew it was in GV! I thought it was in the Mid-West somewhere

[Escurumbele]

29. There is more to the diner to the right, it is assumed the door is there.

I have seen this painting a lot, and that was my assumption. Again, the question was "no visible door", the door is there, it is just not visible.

[malthaussen]

30. LOL. Yes, I noticed.

But a door could be on the right side where it's not on the canvas. Or there may be an exit from the kitchen, as was suggested upthread.

-- Mal

[CaptainTruth]

32. I always thought it was strange that there's no sidewalk in front of the diner.

If you look on the left side of the painting there's clearly a sidewalk in front of the buildings across the street. There's a curb, with a step down to the street, & then the street comes right up against the exterior walls of the diner, with no sidewalk.

[TrogL]

33. I used to love to deconstruct Thomas Kinkaide paintings

-tiny cottages with 2 huge fireplaces
-houses parked at the end of logging trails
-horses left in the cold saddled
-orphan chimneys

[reACTIONary]

37. They look like the house is on fire and a goner. nt

[Notek]

38. Yes,

I suppose we all do that to some extent but logic and art make strange bedfellows.

[edbermac]

39. That was recreated for Pennies From Heaven (1982)

[Deb]

40. And here I thought it was done to emphasize a city's fishbowl like appearance

That evening feature was most unexpected during my first visit.

[Yavin4]

42. I absolutely love that painting and I don't know why. n/t

[MustLoveBeagles]

46. In a local diner I used to go to

There was a parody of the painting with Humphry Bogart as the diner employee with Marilyn Monroe and Elvis sitting together and James Dean sitting by himself.

[Iggo]

48. LOLOLOLOL ...

[left-of-center2012]

55. Isn't that a door in the far right side?

Could be an exit.

[nilram]

66. People on this thread can _assume_that the door is out of the frame

but the point that opens up the imagination is asking why the painter chose this viewpoint, these people, those colors. At least it opens up my imagination. For the purposes of this painting, there is no door to the outside. How does that make you feel?

I had previously thought of this is a lonely nighttime cityscape, and it is, but noticing the lack of a door makes me feel more claustrophobic.

[CTyankee]

67. It's creepy. The people seem unaware that they are in a place with no exit door.

[Donkees]

68. I've imagined it as the 'fourth wall' in theatre ... 'public solitude'

The fourth wall is an imaginary, invisible wall that stretches along the front of the stage separating the actors from the audience. In this way the actors are able to interact with each other in utter privacy while being in full view of the audience. This simple idea completely changed the way actors, writers, directors and audiences approached theatre and more recently cinema. Stanislavski called it ‘public solitude’ the ability to behave as one would in private, while actually being in public.

https://www.stagemilk.com/what-is-the-fourth-wall-and-how-to-use-it/

[Donkees]

69. Inside the virtual 3D representation of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks

Masterpiece: Nighthawks places British art historian, BBC presenter and BAFTA nominated broadcaster, Dr James Fox inside the virtual 3D representation of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks - his famous 1942 oil on canvas painting that portrays four people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner’s window.

Working closely with Dr James Fox creative director Christopher Pearson from The Experience Machine (TEM) and the production team from Bild Studios have been able to re-imagine how a painting could exist as a 3-dimensional world. This process has allowed the technology to reveal insights into the painting that have never been considered before.

In Masterpiece the 3D representation of Hopper’s painting was created as carefully extracted 3D geometry with detailed layers of texturing added; partly handmade, partly AI-generated, that would resemble the brush strokes and fine crafting of Edward Hopper’s unique painting style. Finally, the 3D scene was imported into the game engine Unreal Engine and rendered in real-time based on the position of the physical film camera on the MARS stage.

The integration of real-world effects such as time of day, virtual depth of field, environmental lighting and other properties were configured to be controlled via a mobile tablet - directly controlled by the director on set.

[packman]

71. Thanks for the post

Very interesting