Skip to Content

A Monthly Culture Matrix For the Cosmopolitan Traveler

Edward Hopper and the American Hotel


Virginia Museum of Fine Arts / Richmond / Art

“Maybe I am not very human—what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house,” Edward Hopper once said. The American artist had a knack of imbuing the most mundane scenes with a surrealism (those walls of angled sunlight!) that took the form of lingering melancholy. Though Hopper painted both public and private spaces, this is the first show to concentrate on his paintings of hospitality settings. Leave it to Hopper to locate the isolating element in travel—hotel rooms, the rotation of tenants, the loneliness in mobility. —E.C.

Buy tickets here
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd, Richmond, VA 23220
Get Directions »
Start a New Search
Subscribers Only

Start your free trial to access the full Arts Intel Report

Subscribe to Air Mail to access every article
and search our entire Arts Intel Report.

Subscribe Now

Already a subscriber? Sign in here.