Second Story Sunlight

The Whitney Museum of American Art (the USA).

Canvas, oil.

In this work, the artist focused on two houses with gabled roofs, standing in the rays of the bright morning sun. There are two figures on the balcony: a young woman in a swimsuit sits on the railing, exposing herself to the sun, an elderly woman reads. The wife of the painter, Jennifer, was a model for both of them. Hopper wrote about the purpose of this picture, “I do not think that there is any symbolism in the two figures … I was more interested in sunlight on buildings and figures”. This is a vivid example of how Hopper elevated landscapes with houses to the rank of psychological portraits, reviving the inanimate and adding significance to it. The fact that Edward Hopper grew up on the banks of the Hudson River with its distinctive qualities of light made him sensitive regarding what he considered “tales of sunlight”.