Expert Voices: Edward Hopper’s Cobbs Barn, South Truro and Three Water Colors

Group of Houses, dated 1923-24, stems from a pivotal stage in the development of Edward Hopper’s career. In 1923, at the insistence of Josephine Nivison (who would later become his wife), Hopper began experimenting with the medium of watercolor. While working in Gloucester during the summer of 1923, he committed himself wholeheartedly to works on paper rendered in loose yet expertly applied brush strokes. His success with the medium was instantaneous, with the Brooklyn Museum of Art acquiring one of his Gloucester pictures in 1923. This marked Hopper’s first sale in more than ten years of illustration. With the momentum of his commercial success, Hopper’s productivity in the early 1920s accelerated, capturing houses, boats, and quiet street corners in the small town of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Residential homes occupy much of Hopper’s subject matter in these early watercolors, and Group of Houses is no exception. These charming saltbox houses are typical for the Cape Ann region, whose architectural style reflects its coastal New England atmosphere. Hopper positions the structures in the center of the sheet, their angled roofs and thinly painted chimneys mirroring one another in a carefully arranged descending pattern. The present work is historically significant within the context of Hopper’s artistic career as one of the earliest watercolors ever completed, but it is his masterful application of color that distinguishes Group of Houses as one of his finest Gloucester pictures. Nestled into a dense array of lush grass, the vibrant green foreground of the composition is bright and inviting. The upper register of the piece is equally vivid, with the blue sky signaling a beautiful clear day in Cape Ann. As the green and blue pigments merge at center along the horizon line, the resulting image is rich in color and captivating as such.

Edward Hopper passed away in 1967, his wife Josephine following shortly after in 1968. Upon her death, all of the artist’s works in her possession entered the Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collects ion as part of a monumental 1970 bequest. Group of Houses was gifted to the museum as part of that bequest, where it has resided for more than fifty years. It appears at auction this May for the first t.mes ever. Group of Houses is noteworthy not only for its museum provenance, but also for its important place in the history of Hopper’s oeuvre. Emblematic of the artist’s earliest engagement with watercolor – a medium for which he is renowned today – Group of Houses highlights the artist’s precision as a draftsman, skill as a colorist, and ability to illustrate his immediate surroundings with great care.