[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]

Recently I wrote about Edward Hopper’s painting influences, but have you seen his prints? In his short lived career as a printmaker, Hopper made 70 monotypes, etchings, and drypoints before he turned his focus entirely to painting. Hopper was partially influenced by Degas, who did a little printmaking himself, but Hopper especially connected with his fellow illustrator and career printmaker Martin Lewis. First, let’s start with Degas:

Edgar Degas

Degas was a continuous experimenter of art materials, and a master of monotype printmaking. He encorporated techniques of etchings, monotypes, paint and pastels into his figurative works. Hopper admired the work of Degas. He took several trips to Paris, and became friendly acquaintances with the artist. Degas preferred the monotype process (a painter’s print), but below is one of his etchings: a portrait of Mary Cassatt.

 

Among his monotype and pastel works, Degas did a series featuring a young model bathing in private interior scenes, many with the light coming in from a window. The model appears to be caught midway into a movement, making triangles with her body. While the bathing models make a variety of shapes in various positions, many of these interior scenes have secondary verticals and rumpled fabrics that support the model in the composition, and give the scene an intimate feeling, emphasizing the interior elements.

 

Below is one of Hopper’s etchings, featuring a similar approach to the figure in an interior. Notice the similarities? Windows appear frequently in Hopper’s work, as he sets inside next to outside: quiet interior moments and the busy outside world.

 

Hopper’s Prints

With a background in illustration, and an appreciation of tone and value, Hopper easily took to etching and drypoint. The tonality of the medium allowed him to play with architecture, and shadow shapes. He had a preference for a deeply etched plate, and very black ink on very white paper, so the prints were high contrast, similar to Martin Lewis’ prints.

 

 

 

Hopper produced approximately 70 prints over a relatively short period of time. His career as an etcher was short, and ended in 1923. In 1928 he made two last drypoints, before abandoning printmaking to focus on painting.

Martin Lewis

Hopper’s primary influence in printmaking was fellow illustrator Martin Lewis, who taught him the technical aspects of etching. The two shared a similar taste in city scenes.

If all Hopper wanted to do was paint light on the side of a house (Hopper’s quote), all Martin Lewis wanted to do was capture moments where light and shadow play.

Light and dark dance from figures onto angled city structures in Martin Lewis’s prints, evoking a film noir style of New York City energy. The two had a lot in common stylistically. Lewis incorporated elements of impressionism and tonalism, and his drypoints depict mundane city scenes, capturing both bustling crowds and small moments of solitude, like Hopper’s city scenes.

Notice how Lewis uses diagonals and strong light vs dark shadow shapes to create structure and mood in his compositions. The figures initiate the movement, but in parallel to Hopper’s quiet stage actors, they’re no more individual and personal than the buildings themselves. The story lives in the moment of the scene.[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”12369,12370,12371,12372,12373,12374,12375,12376,12379,12380,12381,12382,12383,12385,12386,12387,12388,12390,12391,12393″ layout=”3″ gallery_style=”1″ load_in_animation=”none”][/vc_column][/vc_row]