CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/14/2013

American Modern: Edward Hopper

This weekend, The Museum of Modern Art, New York launches American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe, presenting 150 artworks made between 1915 and 1950. The show—an instant blockbuster—pairs iconic masterpieces with rarely seen examples of "American Modernism" from the museum's vast collection. According to The Wall Street Journal, the curators are countering "the idea that, in its early years, the museum prized European modernists like German painter Paul Klee over hometown favorites like Hopper—a claim that its staff began battling in the 1930s by giving major solo shows to American artists like Stuart Davis and Charles Burchfield… The curators' choices, known and unknown, collectively chronicle a nation surging toward factories and skyscrapers even as its people feel ambivalent about doing so. From Florine Stettheimer's white wicker-framed "Family Portrait II" (1933) to Jacob Lawrence's more dour 1940s "Migration Series" labor scenes, the panorama remains as complex as ever." Featured image, Edward Hopper's "House by the Railroad" (1925), is reproduced from American Modern.