Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper

At the Rockwell Museum

9 Route 183, Stockbridge, MA

            Two very disparate personalities are on display at the Rockwell Museum through October 26. One lights up the room and invites you in to play; the other asks only to be left alone in the shadows.

The Unknown Hopper: Edward Hopper as Illustrator follows Hopper’s struggle to become a “real” artist while earning his keep as an illustrator in the 1910s.  His mentors and peers have work exhibited as well so that the show represents a history of the greats in illustration during last few decades of the Golden Age of Illustration.  To cap it off, Murray Tinkleman’s show is still up and serves as a perfect example of the evolution of narrative art.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) travelled much the same path at about the same time.  One wonders, however, if they were looking out the same window.  What stands out about Hopper’s work is his love for shadow, for introspection and for capturing what I call laundry-mat-moments: those times when one sits in a public place utterly lost in one’s own thoughts. His most iconic painting is Nighthawks (1942) in which three people sit late at night in a corner deli. Compare this to Rockwell’s Saying Grace (1951) or Freedom from Want (1943) and it is easy to see the very different way in which the two viewed the world, or at the very least, how they felt about people in general.

What is interesting about Hopper’s earlier illustrative work is the fact that he was forced to paint people “prancing about” at a time when it went against fashion to be gloomy.  Not only did this depress him, it brought a signature tension into his commercial work. This is especially apparent in his covers for the Morse Dry Dock Dial magazine and for Hotel Management Magazine.  If Rockwell saw a world full of home-cooked meals and children playing, Hopper’s world fit more into the Gilded Age of Wharton mannerism.

It is in his book illustrations that the real Hopper starts to come out of hiding.  Achingly visceral and tangibly emotional, these charcoal drawings are breathtaking. They also serve as examples of Hopper’s creative process since he, like Rockwell, spent a lot of time making studies and analyzing his ideas before putting them to paint. It is wonderful to see how he uses charcoal to explore mood and its relationship to lights and darks.

While the paintings of his peers give you an overview of his artistic development, it is the relationship and work of his wife, Josephine Nivision Hopper, that is most descriptive of the man. An artist and performer in her own right, Jo Hopper used her skills to pull Hopper through his many serious bouts of depression and writer’s block by working alongside him and sparking his competitive streak. I found her watercolor of her favorite cat, who had a chair and plate at their dinner table, to be a nice break from the brooding mood of her husband.

What this exhibit brings to mind is the question of nostalgia.  Is the past sweeter than today as portrayed by Rockwell?  Or is it full of the romantic struggle of hidden lonely souls as is seen in Hopper’s work? After seeing this show, my answer is that it depends upon what you choose to see when you look out the window.

Baseball, Rodeos and Automobiles: The Art of Murray Tinkelman

Baseball, Rodeos and Automobiles: The Art of Murray Tinkelman

Part of the Distinguished Illustrator Series

At the Norman Rockwell Museum Stockbridge, MA.

March 29 – June 15, 2014

            If the folly of humanity has gotten you down—go to the Norman Rockwell Museum. Then spend some time with the stimulating Murray Tinkelman.

            Though not generally well-known, Tinkelman is considered a legend in the Illustrative Arts. In order to appreciate his contribution to the genre, it is important to understand a little bit about the history of illustration; a topic for which Tinkelman has considerable passion, so much so that he travels the country giving lectures on the subject.           

            Historically, art has been used to illuminate religious iconography and to glorify the wealthy. After the printing press and public education made reading a part of everyday life, art became a popular medium for selling goods as well as telling stories. Originally, all illustrations were either etchings or engravings which meant that every image depended upon the skill of the engravers and the printers to accurately transcribe the artist’s work. With the invention of the halftone process of photo-engraving, illustrators became the controlling force behind the image.  This invention sparked the Golden Age of Illustration (1880’s-1920’s). Norman Rockwell’s early popularity stemmed from the narrative styles of this era.

            Commercial and illustrative art of the 1930’s through the 1950’s was heavily influenced by Rockwell’s Populist narrative style.   Murray Tinkelman grew up in a world filled with images that sold the American Dream but which also belied the ugly underbelly of America. In contrast, most Fine Artists of the time were focusing on portraying their experience of what they saw as the real America.  When Tinkelman entered the advertising marketplace in the mid-1950’s, there was as large a divide between the imagery of the Illustrative and Fine Arts as there was between the races.

            Enter Murray Tinkelman, the artist-illustrator.

            Tinkelman’s early work has the feel of an engraving that is trying awfully hard to be a cartoon. His work earned him numerous awards but it wasn’t until he absent-mindedly doodled a rhinoceros in 1970 that he became a legend. This break-through is the focus of the exhibit.

            There is plenty of information available at the museum about his career and development as an illustrator so I want to take the time to tell you HOW he does what he does—because it is truly amazing. 

            He draws out the image as perfectly as possible in pencil and then uses a very fine technical pen, called a rapidograph, to draw tiny lines all over the sketch.  His first line always starts at 12:00 and ends at 6:00.  Working over the entire piece instead of sections, he then cross-hatches more small lines, each of which starts at 1:00 and ends at 7:00.  Then again from 2:00 to 8:00, continuing until he has filled the image with enough cross-hatches to achieve a middle-grey tone.  After this he works on the areas which will be lighter until he gets to 11:00.  If you look closely you can see this clock pattern. For a more thorough description of his process, please use the following link: http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/10/murray-Tinkelman-describes-his-process.html

            This method gives his images a layered, sunlit, movement that is somehow incredibly still.  He ranges from whimsical “Mechanimals”, to expressive portraits of Native Americans at a Powwow and of cowboys at the rodeo. His later work involves a nostalgic look back to the ‘40s and ‘50s of his youth: details of old cars, homages to baseball heroes, movie monsters and Coney Island Kodak moments. 

Do as he recommends in the museum video: stop and listen with your eyes.  If you do you will see the colors he creates in black and white.

            Tinkelman describes his illustrations as “interpretive and descriptive” as compared to Rockwell’s narrative style. This is most especially shown in his illustrations for Ballantine’s re-release of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, the originals of which are shown in this exhibit.  The profound effect of his work and teaching methods within the Illustrative Arts comes from the fact that he was asked to illustrate books not because they amplified the text, but because they added to the content of the book itself.  He made what had once been a consequence of literature into a part of literature and an art unto itself. The once “mere” illustrator was now seen as an Artist with as much standing as many of the great Fine Artists.  With respect comes power and with power comes creative control. Because of Tinkelman, author and illustrator have become equal parents in the creation of what we read: a union perfectly illustrated by the art of Wendell Minor whose work is also shown at the Rockwell Museum through May 26, 2014.