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“[Edward Hopper in Vermont] is an engaging work of scholarship that reads at times like a detective story.”—Seven Days (Burlington, VT)
A delightful account of Edward Hopper’s sojourns in Vermont with his wife, Jo, illustrated by the watercolors and drawings that he made there
Edward and Jo Hopper first discovered Vermont in 1927, making day trips from the Whitney Studio Club’s summer retreat for New York artists in Charlestown, New Hampshire. In 1935 and 1936 the Hoppers again traveled to Vermont, this time from their summer home in Cape Cod, in Edward’s continuing search for new places to paint. During these quests they identified the White River and what Edward considered to be Vermont’s “finest” river valley, and they returned there for longer visits in 1937 and 1938, boarding at Robert and Irene Slater’s Wagon Wheels farm in South Royalton. These “vacations” were a change from the usual tempo of their lives, a break from the studio-bound easels, canvas, and oils, and an opportunity to paint something different, to be in a new place and paint en plein air. Over the course of his Vermont sojourns, Edward Hopper produced some two dozen paintings, watercolors that are among the most distinctive of his regional works, strongly characterized by place.
In this accessible volume, Bonnie Tocher Clause tells the story of the Hoppers’ visits to Vermont, their stays on the Slater farm, and their introduction to farm life. She locates the sites shown in Hopper’s Vermont paintings, identifies two watercolors not previously recognized as Vermont scenes, and traces the development of Hopper’s singular interpretations of the Vermont landscape.
In Edward Hopper in Vermont, Clause details the provenance of the Vermont paintings through the years, tracking the history of sales leading to the works’ ultimate homes with private collectors and museums. Showcasing all the Vermont paintings in color, this volume will delight both fans of Hopper’s work and those who are fascinated by the story of the creation, collection, and business of producing great art.
Click here for TABLE OF CONTENTS
Reviews:
“Edward Hopper may be best known for his haunting paintings of urban scenes but he liked to get out of the city in summer, and he never stopped working. Until now, the watercolors he produced in the Green Mountain Statehave been largely overlooked. Edward Hopper in Vermont is a fascinating inquiry into the taciturn Republican who gazed beyond the covered bridges and white church steeples to find the Vermont that spoke to him. . . . Bonnie Tocher Clause does a masterful job of carrying readers along on her journey of discovery.”—Boston Globe
Endorsements:
“Bonnie Clause has gathered Edward Hopper’s summer pastorals painted in watercolor in Vermont’s White River Valley during vacations with his artist wife Jo. Clause tracked down his locations, even those previously forgotten, with scholarly delight as she came to know Hopper’s favorite part of our green state. If you love the gravity of Hopper’s better-known oil paintings, you will find this book a lyrical counterpart to his somber scenes of city life.”—Sabra Field
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BONNIE TOCHER CLAUSE is a writer and independent scholar. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and South Royalton, Vermont.
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