Automat (painting)

The Des Moines Art Center in Iowa (the USA).

Canvas, oil.

This is a plot picture with the figure of a lonely woman in a deserted cafe in the evening. Looking absentmindedly, she sits with her cup of coffee at a round table; behind her back is a large window with a reflection of rows of identical lamps in dark glass. Hopper’s wife was a model for this picture, but the author made her younger (Joe was 44 years old at the time). The restaurant is empty, and there are no signs of activity (or any kind of life) on the street. All this increases a feeling of loneliness so that the picture is associated with the concept of urban exclusion. One critic remarked that Hopper’s character has a typical melancholy posture when “the woman’s eyes are lowered as if her thoughts were turned inward”. The work was first exhibited on Valentine’s Day at Hopper’s second solo exhibition at Ren’s New York gallery and was soon sold for $ 1,200. In 1995, Time magazine used the picture as an illustration for an article on stress and depression.