13
●
EDWARD HOPPER
“MaidenWait,” The Ripple Saith
.
Watercolor and pencil on white wove paper, 1899. 230x170 mm; 9x6
3
/
8
inches.
Signed and dated in watercolor, lower right recto, and inscribed with the verse
“Maiden, wait,” the ripple saith; “Wait awhile, for I am death!,” from a poem
by Rudyard Kipling, 1895, in ink lower center recto.
Ex-collection the artist, until 1967; his widow, Jo Hopper, until 1968;
Reverend Arthayer R. Sanborn, Nyack, until 2005;Alexander Gallery, New
York, courtesy of Kennedy Galleries, NewYork, until October, 2007; thence
to the current owner.
Published in Levin,
Edward Hopper,A Catalogue Raisonne
, volume II, page 7,
figure W-15.
While still at Nyack Union High School, just north of New York City,
Hopper (1882-1967) created his first signed oil painting,
Rowboat in Rocky
Cove
, 1895, which evidences his early interest in realism and natural subjects.
After high school, Hopper studied at the Correspondence School of
Illustrating, NewYork.Within a year, he transferred to the NewYork Institute
of Art and Design where he studied from 1900-1906, and was influenced by
Robert Henri,William Merritt Chase and Kenneth Hayes Miller, alongside
classmates George Bellows and Rockwell Kent.
Hopper began working as an illustrator in 1905 with C. C. Phillips &
Company, New York. His illustrations greatly supplemented his income
through the early 1900s. Not until 1924, after having sold out the entirety
of his second one-man exhibition, at Rehn Gallery, NewYork, in 1924, did
he find sound financial footing through sales of his paintings.
According to Levin, among the illustrations Hopper produced in art school
for literary works by Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, he also,
“Sketched Rudyard Kipling’s Private Mulvaney from the cycle of soldier
stories that made its author famous. Kipling’s work made such an impression
on the young Hopper that even when he wrote as an adult, he referred to
the poetry.”
[25,000/35,000]
