Edward Hopper, Drawing from a Paris sketchbook, 1906-1907

Narrator: In this case, you’ll see a number of pages taken from sketchbooks that Hopper used in Paris.

Carter Foster: Hopper goes to Paris three times. The first time was for an extended trip in 1906, 1907. And the French capital had a huge effect on him. He already was interested in French culture and it only made him more interested.
And letters that Hopper wrote back to his family when he was studying there correlate really well to these drawings. He describes being fascinated by café life and how different it was from street life in New York. He was fascinated by social class and by the different types of costumes that people were wearing. You can really see that in these sketches, which were done probably very quickly from life, from direct observation while he was sitting in cafés and in parks and on the street.