Edward Hopper was not unfamiliar with the new currents in European and American art of the early twentieth century. From 1900 to 1906 he studied at the New York School of Art, chiefly with Robert Henri; he also exhibited his classroom work with other Henri students. And on three occasions between 1906 and 1910 he studied abroad, mainly in Paris, where he essayed the then-recent modes of European experimental painting. Though he was enthralled by impressionist light and intrigued by cubist composition, it is otherwise apparent that he little regarded the ascending styles of international modernism. Like other American artists such as Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Niles Spencer, and Guy Pene de Bois, Hopper felt the need to adapt the design merits of formal abstraction to the traditional American bent for no-nonsense factual reporting. An oft-quoted Hopper statement well summarizes his credo: "Instead of subjectivity, a new objectivity; instead of abstraction, a reaffirmation of representation and specific subject matter; instead of internationalism, an art based on the American scene."

This is not to say, however, that because Hopper painted "realistically" his work should be pigeonholed with that of his similarly "realistic" contemporaries the social realists (like Reginald Marsh and Raphael Soyer) or the regionalists (Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and others), styles that are by comparison highly narrative and illustrational. Though based on familiar recognizable images, Hopper's paintings are introspective, quietly symbolic, laconic, psychologically penetrating, often spare in their pictorial components. Rather than the brashness and hyperactivity of American life, Hopper was interested in its other side: its banality, loneliness, detachment, and dull routine. In many of his best-known canvasses, Hotel Room (1931), New York Movie (1939) and Nighthawks (1942), for example, the one, one, two, or few people depicted are characteristically isolated, pensive, humorless.

Architectural studies and unpeopled city views also constitute a large segment of Hopper's painting. The inherent structural geometry of buildings appealed to his sense of design order and dynamics. Typically his compositions are "built" on a sub-pattern of rectangles, strong horizontals, verticals, and diagonals, reinforced by a system of alternating tonal values imparting a feeling of control and stability. Hopper's lighting, too, a distinctive feature of his work, tends to be pure and bold, sometimes analytic and severe. Smooth cast shadows are often an integral aspect of the design. While people may not appear in many of the architectural scenes, as with all his painting, the potential human drama is ever implied. In looking at such paintings as Manhattan Bridge Loop (1928), House by the Railroad (1928), and Early Sunday Morning (1932), one senses profound solitude and nostalgia. One wants to ask: "Why is the place deserted?" "Why are the windows shuttered or empty?" "Where have the people gone?" "Who were they?" "Why did they go?" "Will they return?" The Hunter Museum's House and Boats fits well into this chapter of production. It is thought to have been painted at Gloucester, Massachusetts, about 1923, one of the periods when the artist was working extensively in watercolor. True to the conventional aquarelle technique, the painting is more loosely arranged and freely brushed than his oils. Still, it aptly demonstrates the essential ingredients of his architectural mode: strong geometry, bold lighting, starkness, clearly defined forms. And one does indeed wonder about the people who may inhabit this seaside dwelling. The nearby boats suggest they may be within. Are they perhaps reclusive? Confined?

Hopper was born in Nyack, New York, in 1882. After his study in New York and Europe, he achieved early success in being invited to exhibit at the Society of Independent Artists show in 1910 and at the Armory Show in 1913. It was also in 1913 that Hopper took a studio at 3 Washington Square North in New York City, a space he maintained until his death in 1967. The first twelve years he was there, however, to support himself he worked largely as a commercial illustrator. Though his art was regularly reproduced in Sunday Magazine, Adventure, and Scribner's, he disparaged the necessity to do commissioned work. Recalling his chagrin at having to solicit assignments from publishers, he commented years later: "Sometimes I'd walk around the block a couple of times before I'd go in, wanting the job for the money, and at the same time hoping to hell I wouldn't get the lousy thing."

After more than a decade's hiatus following the Armory Show achievement, Hopper's painting career began to prosper again in 1924, when the Rehn Gallery presented a showing of his watercolors. Every piece in the exhibit sold, including probably House and Boats. That same year he married Josephine "Jo" Verstille, a painter who had also studied with Henri. The Hoppers summered at South Truro, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1931 and '32. After a successful retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933, he built a studio at South Truro, where he and Jo returned nearly every summer.

Never forgetting that earlier in his career the National Academy of Design had declined to show his work, he turned down membership in that organization when associate status was extended to him in 1932. On the other hand, there was a form of recognition he did relish: He was one of just four artists chosen to represent the United States in the internationally prestigious Venice Biennale exhibition of 1952.

Through his sixty years as an active painter, Hopper remained fundamentally true to his stated credo. His style changed only slightly and doubtless to his ultimate benefit -- he reacted little, if at all, to the various revolutionary "isms" that captivated American comtemporary art during his lifetime. Guy Pene du Bois, a close friend of the artist, fittingly assessed his accomplishment and significance:

Hopper is an artist who will make many artists of the past or present seem trivial. He will make them seem too talkative or too wasteful. He will make many of the "great" moderns seem like funny little reciters of fairy tales. He will be shown in any comparison as a serious man, without patience for trivialities, capable of reaching majesty.