Edward Hopper

Study for Nighthawks

1941 or 1942

Three people sit at a curved diner counter under bright interior lights on a quiet city street.

Three people sit at a curved diner counter under bright interior lights on a quiet city street.

Not on view

Date
1941 or 1942

Classification
Drawings

Medium
Fabricated chalk and charcoal on paper

Dimensions
Sheet: 11 1/8 × 15 in. (28.3 × 38.1 cm) Image (irregular): 8 1/8 × 14 1/8 in. (20.6 × 35.9 cm)

Accession number
2011.65

Credit line
Purchase, Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, by exchange

Rights and reproductions
© Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

API
artworks/38986

Audio

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Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942

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Narrator: This is the last drawing Hopper did for Nighthawks. He may even have made it after he’d started the painting.
Carter Foster: There are some differences that it has with the painting, but there are many, many similarities. And we can see him working out the very subtle shifts in points of view spatially that interested him a great deal.We can also see how he was working out the qualities of light that interested him by putting white chalk on the sheet to indicate sort of this harsh fluorescent light that was coming out of the diner and contrasting that to the space of the street with the rich darkness of the chalk, and getting all these subtle modulations in this particular sheet.

Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, 1941 or 1942

In Hopper Drawing

Exhibitions

Edward Hopper
3,151 works in the collection, 68 exhibitions

View artist

Due to the anticipated effects of the blizzard, the Whitney Museum of American Art will close early Sunday, February 22 at 4 pm and will be closed to the public on Monday, February 23.