As we all know, the advent of the automobile and the freedom of movement it brought with it had countless consequences on the way societies interact, trade, and enjoy leisure, not to mention the wealth and economic development it has generated since its inception. As Giovanni Agnelli, president of the FIAT group, said during a talk organized by the Barreiros Foundation in Madrid in 2000: "No invention has generated such broad social and economic transformations as the automobile."

It is also undeniable that one of the most important tools for a painter, along with their genius, is the brush, but the tool that allowed Edward Hopper, one of the most recognized and valuable painters of the 20th century, to capture mid-century America was none other than his automobile. First a 1925 Dodge, bought secondhand in 1927, and later two Buicks, one from 1939 and another from 1954, allowed him to travel across the United States and Mexico in search of inspiration.

In an interview for Time magazine in January 1948, Hopper said: "For me, the important thing is the feeling of movement, you realize how beautiful things are when you're traveling."

Although cars clearly appear in several of his works, the importance of the automobile in Hopper's work lies in the fact that it was the means by which he, together with his wife, also an artist, was able to travel for years across the vast geography of the United States and even Mexico. Motels, hotels, and "tourist homes" turned into one of the central themes of his work, though not the only one. And in fact, if one intended to reflect on the society of the time, as Hopper did, there was no choice but to incorporate cars and roads into the scene from time to time, as he does in several of his works.

In Cars and Rocks (1927), a large rocky cliff is depicted with two cars that seem to be stopped at the edge of a road, which we can not see due to the perspective. This is his first watercolor in which this invention, the automobile, appears on stage and practically one of the only two works where the car plays a starring role. Considering that the couple bought their first car that same year, this watercolor represents one of their first "on the road" works.

The other work, titled Jo in Wyoming (1946), is painted from the backseat of his 1939 Buick and shows Jo, his wife, while she paints a watercolor of the landscape. For the Hoppers, the car was their mobile studio outside New York, where they lived and had their actual studio. This is the only work in which the car is represented as such, as their "office." In fact, it is also one of the few works where Hopper portrays himself, although to see him, one has to imagine him in the left side of the mirror.

Before painting Cars and Rocks, a young Hopper combined oil paintings and watercolors with illustration work for several American magazines. One example is Tavern Topics, where the June 1920 cover depicts the arrival at a luxurious hotel, portrayed here far from the ostentation of the lobby. The guests are shown getting out of the car, which takes center stage on the cover. Another magazine he worked for was Hotel Management, directed to hotel owners and managers. Many of the covers feature typical hotel interior scenes, such as lobbies, poolside terraces or restaurants, but in many others, Hopper once again focuses on the act of arrival, which is almost always by car.

Hotel Management. Edward Hopper, may 1925

Returning to his paintings, the typical architecture of the new neighborhoods on the American East Coast was another theme that interested Hopper. In 1937, he painted Sun on Prospect Street (1937). Here, the single-family homes take center stage, but on the right-hand margin, three cars are parked on the street, reflecting the new society that inhabited the neighborhood.

*Sun on Prospect street.* Edward Hopper, 1937

One of his most famous works, Rooms for Tourists (1945), painted at the end of World War II, introduces tourism once again as a starting point for recovering the optimism and leisure that existed before the war. No cars are present in the scene, but the work is worth mentioning here as there are reports from the homeowner of the house, who claimed to have seen Hopper several nights, sketching the house from the inside of his car, presumably the 1939 Buick, parked across the street.

*Rooms for tourists*. Edward Hopper, 1945

Reliable information about the Hoppers' relationship with their cars comes from the detailed diaries written by his wife, Jo (Josefine), during their travels. These diaries include records of the motels and hotels they passed through and assertive statements like: "One should never come to paint in Mexico without a car." The couple acknowledged that moving around by public transport was quite difficult, making it hard to discover small towns where they could find inspiration. This highlighted the freedom that the automobile represented for them. In the same notes, Jo recorded how meticulous her husband was about the car, always taking care of its maintenance and carefully choosing parking spots.

Their car trips were numerous and varied in length and duration, but two are especially notable. Between May and July of 1941, the Hoppers traveled across the United States, from New York to California, in a trip Jo titled "The Great Western Tour" in her diary. They visited many national parks, such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, and preferred staying in roadside motels where they could park their 1939 Buick visible from the window.

After this note from Jo in 1941, it is no surprise that years later Hopper painted Western Motel (1957) in his New York studio, giving almost equal prominence to the woman depicted as to the front end of what seems to be a 1954 Buick, probably the one he had at that time. In this painting, Hopper captured the essence of a motel and, with it, the hustle and bustle of American life in the 1950s. This being here a person – though it might also be a couple, with the other person being the observer photographing the scene – who, judging by the arrangement of the luggage, is preparing to leave soon and continue their road trip, using the car parked in front of their room. The rest of the landscape visible through the window emphasizes the location of these establishments, generally isolated from any town, in the middle of the vast American highways. Some art critics even argue that Hopper personified the car in this painting since, with some imagination, one could easily liken the front of the 1954 Buick to a face. The chrome at the end of the hood forms the upper lip, the vertical elements of the grill resemble the teeth, and, of course, the headlights would be the eyes.

The second major trip, lasting three months, between December 1952 and February 1953, had as its final destination Guanajuato, a town in southern Mexico, marking his fourth trip to that country. As with all their trips, the goal was to find material and inspiration for what would become some of Hopper´s most famous works, some of which would later be auctioned in the 21st century for over 90 million dollars.

Hopper's work is characterized by highlighting everyday actions that take place primarily in mundane and simple spaces, seemingly lacking interest, but which he managed to turn into special places. Whether they are offices, hotel room interiors where the central figure is not the guest but the cleaning service, or the chaotic and neglected image of rooftops and chimneys in a Mexican city. In Gas (1940), Hopper depicts a gas station worker, seemingly alone on a road, only accompanied by a forest. The car is not present; it seems to have just left, but the freedom of movement we mentioned earlier is very much present. In this case, the painting was done in his studio, not on the road, and according to him, it does not represent a specific gas station but was made from memories of different establishments visited during his travels.

*Portrait of Orleans*, Edward Hopper, 1950

The automobile was for Hopper an indispensable tool for gaining inspiration for paintings that had nothing to do with the machine itself. As represented in Jo in Wyoming the car was his studio on the road. It brought nuance by partially appearing in scenes that would otherwise be incomplete, as in Western Motel. And despite not being directly represented in the scene at all as in Gas, or shown in the background as in Portrait of Orleans, it provided him with everyday images of American society that he could bring to the canvas like no other artist of his stature had done.

References:

Mazow, Leo G. Edward Hopper and the American Hotel. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Yale University Press. 2019
Renner, Rolf G. Edward Hopper, 1882-1967. Taschen 2019
Robbins, Nicholas. The Road. In Foster, Carter E., Hopper Drawing. Whitney Museum of American Art, 2013
whitney.org
edward-hopper.org

Edward Hopper and the automobile

seventy days on the road