| Edward Hopper’s lifelong enthusiasm for the sea developed when he was
a boy in Nyack, New York, then a prosperous Hudson River port with an active
shipyard.
There he enjoyed sketching caricatures of immigrants. Later he pursued his
artistic interest in New York, studying under Kenneth Hayes Miller and Robert
Henri. Hopper
documented the bustling urban and industrial changes of the early twentieth
century like his contemporaries, but he is best known for his scenes of city
life, which
capture the haunting loneliness of empty streets and the solitude of urban
dwellers. Although at first glance Ground Swell appears to have nothing to
do with these
subjects, it is closely tied to the primary themes of isolation and need for
escape so integral to his representation of modern American life. . . .
- Dorothy Moss, formerly Assistant Curator of American Art
Corcoran Gallery of Art |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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