Month: October 2019

Edward Hopper frequently represented people as they appeared to him in brightly lit windows seen from passing El trains. An early example of Hopper’s interest in enigmatic indoor scenes, New York Interior depicts the turned back of a young woman sewing. This unconventional view suggests the impersonal—and yet strangely intimate—quality of modern urban life, as glimpsed voyeuristically through a window. The woman’s clothing and gesture are reminiscent of the iconic ballet dancers painted by French Impressionist Edgar Degas, whom Hopper singled out as the artist whose work he most admired. A partially obscured, framed portrait on the left also appeared in an earlier work, Artist’s Bedroom, Nyack, (1903-06). By including a reference to his past painting, Hopper challenges the impression that we have caught a fleeting glimpse of an anonymous scene.