Edward Hopper and the American Hotel

In conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, curator Mazow and curatorial research specialist Powers deliver a discerning book that explores American illustrator and painter Edward Hopper’s recurring themes of travel and hospitality. Each of the 10 essays, mostly written by Mazow, contextualizes his artwork in the early and mid-20th century—one notes that Hopper and his contemporaries were “both fascinated and repulsed” by outdated Gilded Age homes, many of which were converted into boardinghouses—and vivid reproductions, such as of Hopper’s 1926 watercolor Haunted House, accompany the text. There are also in-depth analyses of several of Hopper’s paintings, such as 1943’s Hotel Lobby, where Mazow observes that the “fashionably dressed twenty-something” woman depicted sitting in a chair is wearing old shoes and concludes that the painting “concerns temporal disjunction. ” Another integral part of the book is Edward’s wife, Josephine, who recorded their travel routes and lodging information and consequently found new subject matters for her husband to paint. Maps that trace two of the Hoppers’ road trips, complete with excerpts from Josephine’s diaries and postcard reproductions, nicely round out this volume. This visually striking exhibit companion will thrill Hopper fans. (Dec.)