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I have a penchant for American art. It is not an educated one, it's just that I like what I see. So, I will from time to time post a particular painters work on this page. I wish to give credit to Mark Harden's archive as a source.
'Nighthawks', painted in 1942 by Edward Hopper, is a favorite of mine.
Nighthawks
Oil on canvas, 1942; 84.1 x 152.4 cm
Friends of American Art Collection, 1942.51
Edward Hopper said that Nighthawkswas inspired by "a restaurant on New York's Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet," but the image, with its carefully constructed composition and lack of narrative, has a timeless quality that transcends its particular locale. One of the best-known images of 20th-century art, the painting depicts an all-night diner in which three customers, all lost in their own thoughts, have congregated. Fluorescent lights had just come into use in the early 1940s, and the all-night diner emits an eerie glow, like a beacon on the dark street corner. Hopper eliminated any reference to an entrance, and the viewer, drawn to the light, is shut out from the scene by a seamless wedge of glass. The four anonymous and uncommunicative night owls seem as separate and remote from the viewer as they are from one another.
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Another American artist who I think exemplifies the american spirit in all his paintings is Norman Rockwell. Everyone of a certain age has to see themselves in some of his works. The bulk of his work was completed in what we think of as a more innocent time. It was not an easier time for sure, but it was a time when personal and family honor mattered.
Georgia O'Keeffe was a feminist before we knew what it meant. A very good biography that I read about her and the photographer Stieglitz was called appropriately enough, 'O'KEEFFE AND STIEGLISTZ'. by Benita Eisler. I love her RED POPPY, more so than her desert paintings. But to each his own.
Jackson Pollack, a star of abstract expressionism. I cannot begin to understand what it is expressing, but I enjoy the color combinations. This painting is interestingly enough titled: Yellow, Gray, Black.
THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM BY EDWARD HICKS.
Jasper Johns born in 1930 and still with us, painted 'FLAG' in 1954-55. I'm a pushover for any image of the USA flag.
Allies Day, May 1917 by Childe Hassam 1859-1935. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts and his full name was Frederick Childe Hassam.
STONE CITY by GRANT WOOD, 1892-1942. Clean, bright, and sharp images of midwest subjects.
Another I like a lot is, Dinner with the threshers. I would have that up here, but it is too long for it to be properly displayed by me.
