Faithful readers know how much I enjoy the work of Edward Hopper. Hopper is one of the great American painters of the early 20th century. He has long been supposed to have been a child prodigy in his painting abilities. Turns out it's time to re-think that whole child prodigy idea.
While working on his art history graduate thesis, Louis Shadwick has discovered that paintings by Hopper during his teenage years were actually copies of other works. The one pictured above was copied from a reproduction in a magazine for amateur artists. The magazine even gave detailed instructions as to how to replicate the painting.
This discovery calls into question not only the matter of child prodigy status, but also the belief that Hopper's work depicted his childhood home in Nyack, New York.
The same situation applies to Hopper's painting "Ships". Long believed to be Hopper's original take, it was revealed to have been copied from a reproduction of a painting by Edward Moran.
Now I must say that copying the masters is a time-honored method of learning to paint. It is a method that is still encouraged, and can yield a treasure trove of ideas. In the best approach, the goal is not to copy the masterwork verbatim (as it were), but rather to use it to see into the mind of the master, and to recreate his visual experience. If a painting is copied slavishly from another painting, it should not be passed off as your own.
Back to Hopper--here's a link to Shadwick's recent article about Hopper's copying of these magazine reproductions. A new page turns in the analysis of Hopper's work!
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