Sheldon

Edward Hopper
Room in New York, (1932)

 

Perspective dominates the view in Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery's Room in New York by renowned American artist Edward Hopper. Framed by a column and a large open window, we peer inside an apartment at night. Hopper was an intensely private person, who made introspection and isolation themes in his paintings. This scene is of detached solitude - a man hunched over in an easy chair, intently reading a newspaper, while a woman, turned away from him, sits stiffly at a piano and striking a key as if to break an awkward silence. The couple's alienation is heightened by a table and door that separate them and lighting that casts shadows on their featureless faces. Scholars consider Room in New York a quintessential painting by Hopper and an art treasure of Nebraska at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.