AN AMERICAN SURREALIST
Leann Schneider
Dada & Surrealism: Albert Reischuck
April 16, 2015
1
“Hopper has the psychological insight of the best ‘Surrealists’ without their circus
methods,”1 Clarence J. Bulliet of the Chicago Daily News wrote in 1943, after seeing Edward
Hopper’s works at the Art Institute of Chicago. Bulliet is one of the first, but not the last,
critics of Hopper to connect his lonely, isolated, uncanny canvases to the inexplicable and
dreamlike world of Surrealism. Hopper is classified traditionally only as a Social Realist but
his work stands apart from that of his contemporaries both in emotional depth and in style of
execution. To strictly cast Hopper as a Social Realist, is to do a disservice to the subtle
nuances of feeling embedded in his works. Rather, Edward Hopper can be classified as an
American Surrealist due to his poignant psychology and the similarities between his empty,
stark settings and those uncanny dream worlds of the Surrealists.
Realism, generally described as a believable representation of what we see, dominated
the American art scene in the 1930s. Most American artists of this period retooled 19th
century’s realism by focusing on toil during the Great Depression; especially popular in the
Midwest, Social Realism captured both the plight and everyday life of Americans. Social
commentators like Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera exemplify this style.
They primarily explore a clear narrative, sympathetic toward the working class, in an easily
digestible visual vernacular. While Hopper certainty portrays pre-war American life and scene
in canvasses like Nighthawks (1942) [Fig. 1] and Early Sunday Morning (1930) [Fig. 2], he
does so concentrating on visual and psychological alienation; his scenes are full of foreboding
1
Clarence Bulliet, "Artless Comment on the Seven Arts," Chicago Daily News, Oct. 30, 1943:
7.
2
and unfulfilled narrative. These themes of alienation, loneliness, isolation, uncertainty and the
eerie settings where these panoramas take place links Hopper inextricably to Surrealism.
Most famously a European movement, Surrealism escaped the wrath of Hitler and
World War II during the 1930s and 1940s by relocating to the relative safety of the United
States. Major European Surrealists like André Breton, Salvador Dalí, André Masson and Kay
Sage found their way across the Atlantic in exile.2 Embroiled with Sigmund Freud’s writings
on the psychology and meaning of dreams, an interest in sexuality, desire and automatism,
European Surrealists were thematically dedicated to subversions of reality through the
imagination or the unconscious. Often, “this resulted in the depiction of fantastic, non-rational
worlds.”3 1931 saw the first Surrealist exhibition in America: Newer Super-Realism in
Hartford, Connecticut. Including only European artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador
Dalí, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, Julien Levy changed the exhibition’s name back to the original
French –Surréalisme – when he showed a modified version of the show at his gallery in New
York.4 It was the first time many American artists like George Tooker, Federico Castellón,
Paul Cadmus and Edward Hopper saw these European avant-garde works in person. The
influence of the European Surrealists – especially Dalí – on the Americans is undeniable.
Many American artists were, however, interested in creating an American style and
breaking away from European art. Arriving in New York in 1939, French Surrealist Yves
2
Isabelle Dervaux, “Introduction,” Surrealism USA (New York: Hatje Cantz Publishers,
2005), 15.
3
Cindy Buckner, “Real/Surreal Introduction Vinyl” (exhibition material, Real/Surreal
exhibition at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 13,
2012 – January 19th, 2013).
4
Dervaux, 13.
3
Tanguy expressed in a letter to Breton, “European artists seem to be completely hated here,
one talks only about American art.”5 Even when American painters like Walter Quirt and
James Guy blatantly borrowed an imaginary, frightening, hallucinatory European imagery,
they tended to focus their themes on social issues rather than inward personal conflicts.6 The
Museum of Modern Art in New York held the show American Realists and Magic Realists in
1943, which was intended as a survey of contemporary American Art. As stated in the
exhibition’s catalog the show was, “limited to pictures of sharp focus and precise
representation [emphasis in original], whether the subject has been observed in the outer
world—realism, or contrived by the imagination—magic realism.”7 Magic Realists, therefore,
are essentially American Surrealists as they used similar methods as European Surrealists who
utilized precise visual representation of an illusory world. The resulting images hover
precariously between strict visual realism and the themes of European Surrealism, making
them a true vein of American Surrealism.
Magic Realists Jared French and George Tooker exemplify the MOMA’s 1943
description of Magic Surrealism and highlight the feeble balance between reality and surreality. French’s work State Park from 1946 [Fig. 3] and Tooker’s The Subway from 1950
[Fig. 4] demonstrate the manner in which traditional materials like egg tempera are used to
create, “an image of daily life manipulated just enough to turn the ordinary into the
5
Quoted in André Breton, La Beauté Convulsive, exhibition catalog (Paris: Editions du Centre
Pompidou, 1991), 346.
6
Ilene Susan Fort, “American Social Surrealism,” Archives of American Art Journal, 22, no. 3
(1982): 8.
7
Dorothy Canning Miller and Alfred H. Barr Jr, American Realists and Magic Realists, (New
York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1943), 5.
4
extraordinary.”8 By turning human flesh frigid and manipulating the light to cast menacing
shadows, French turns a sunny day at the beach into an ominous scene. Likewise, Tooker
emphasizes the labyrinth-like claustrophobic nature of the subway, leaving the viewer with a
heavy sense of foreboding and anxiety. Ordinary settings turned threatening, with nuanced
attention to psychology, epitomizes this American approach to an almost indistinguishable
realism and surrealism through the 1930s and 1940s.
The intersection between realism and surrealism in American art is not frequently
discussed, however, artists who are blatantly surreal in motif and theme are sometimes also
hyper-realistic in mode and style. Edward Hopper functions as the paragon of an American
artist who subtly paints a mélange of visual reality served on a plate of psychological
uneasiness9, making his canvasses as much surreal as they are real. While his works portray
everyday life of pre-War America in a mode meant to represent the ordinary life one can see,
Hopper utilizes two major tools to imbue his pieces with an uncanny quality. First, Hopper
employs an intimate emotional approach to his sparse cast of characters; he shares this concern
for emotion and unconscious feelings with European Surrealists. Secondly, he – like the Magic
Realists – constructs dreamlike settings and scenery, which are believable enough to be reality
but buzz with anxiety, uncertainty and apprehension. Through setting and psychology
Hopper’s works ooze with a surreal nature absent from other American Social Realists’ works.
8
Jeffery Wechsler, “Magic Realism: Defining the Indefinite,” Art Journal 45, (1988): 294.
9
“There is the implication of sadness or foreboding and isolation that is a typical characteristic
of his [Hopper’s] work, reflecting the artist’s sense of modern society.”
Cindy Buckner, “Real/Surreal Audio Guide” (exhibition material, Real/Surreal exhibition at
the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 13, 2012 – January
19th, 2013).
5
Nighthawks – Hopper’s most famous work and one best characterizing his oeuvre – is
an exemplar of nuanced attention to psychology and emotion that sets Hopper apart from
American Social Realists and pushes him into Surrealism. In Nighthawks the viewer is lured
into looking but cannot see the whole scene; the narrative is unfinished and mysterious. When
the painting was created Hopper lived in Greenwich Village with his wife, Jo. At the time,
New Yorkers watched in horror as The Blitz of German bombs rained down on London; the
United States was just attacked at Pearl Harbor and had formally entered the war raging in
Europe. By placing the foreground figure with his back to the viewer, apart from the other
figures in the composition, Hopper illustrates alienation and loneliness. Though the image is a
simple diner scene, one that should offer comfort or at least suggest the ordinariness of daily
life, Nighthawks pulls the viewer into Hopper’s own emotional apprehension and unease.10
Surrealist Man Ray offers a similar glimpse into his own tormented psyche just before the
European outbreak of World War II in Le Beau Temps (1939) [Fig. 5].
The differences between Hopper’s Nighthawks and Man Ray’s Le Beau Temps are
obvious: where Man Ray has adopted a thoroughly Surrealist aesthetic, (representational but
not necessarily believable) Hopper maintains a realist modus operandi; when Man Ray offers a
viscerally garish and nightmarish scene to convey the psychological turmoil of a Europe on the
threshold of war, Hopper seems to serve only an ordinary night at a diner. Fundamentally,
however, the sensibility embedded in both works is almost identical and each is uniquely
10
Jo Hopper, Edward’s wife, kept many journals during the 1930s and 40s and she recorded
that especially during 1940 – when Edward was going through immense painting block – he
was suffering from massive anxiety due to Europe’s engagement in the beginning of WWII.
Gail Levin, “Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Surrealism and the War,” Art Institute of Chicago
Museum Studies 22, no. 2 (1996): 184.
6
successful in delivering that psychological uneasiness to the viewer. Both Man Ray and
Hopper focus their thematic attention not on the figures of the canvas, but on the underlying
emotional message. The message is one of trepidation and angst in a world plummeting toward
inevitable death and despair. It is subtle, but as Levin points out, “Hopper’s response to the
imminent threat of war is not dissimilar to that of the Surrealists.”11 Emotionally similar
though vastly different in aesthetic, the comparison between Le Beau Temps and Nighthawks
illustrates Levin’s argument.
Similar themes of alienation during turbulent times run through Tooker’s The Subway.
Considering that the Magic Realists were principally American Surrealists12 – sharing similar
themes, modes and interests with European Surrealists but wanting to separate themselves – it
is possible to relate Hopper, here, to established American Surrealism as well as European
Surrealism. Tooker’s post-war scene is full of figures, yet, the theme of isolation and
separation are clear as the central figure’s brow furrows, she looks over her shoulder as if
expecting danger and seems trapped in the suffocating subway. The surrounding figures, rather
than creating a sense of community, are remote and threatening.13 Likewise, the figures in
Nighthawks show no camaraderie. Less obvious than Tooker’s anxiety inducing maze, the
diner is cold and inaccessible, separating the patrons from each other even as they share the
same space. The tension between Hopper’s figures, like in The Subway, helps to heighten…
11
Levin, 188.
12
Wechsler, 293.
13
Buckner, “Audio Guide.” Tooker was especially concerned at this time with the Red Scare
and influenced heavily by the anxiety of the McCarthy Era.
7
Bibliography
Buckner, Cindy. “Real/Surreal Exhibition material.” Real/Surreal exhibition at the Grand
Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 13, 2012 – January 19th, 2013.
--------- “Real/Surreal Audio Guide”
--------- “Real/Surreal Introduction Vinyl”
The Real/Surreal exhibition, which came to Akron in 2012, focused on the relationship
between Realism and Surrealism in American art during the 1930s and 1940s. Curated
by the Whitney primary from their permanent collection, no exhibition catalog was
written for this show. It also traveled to the McNay and Grand Rapids art museums.
The librarians and curators at the McNay and Whitney were somewhat helpful in
directing me to sources, but namely they suggested I contact the exhibition’s main
curator, Carter Foster. Grand Rapids, on the other hand, personally sent me all the
exhibition material they had created, including an in-house bibliography. This material
was incredibly helpful in collecting information on specific works of art and in finding
sources relating to the crossover between Realism and Surrealism.
Fort, Ilene Susan. “American Social Surrealism.” Archives of American Art Journal 22, no. 3
(January 1, 1982): 8–20.
Fort’s article was not incredibly helpful for this particular essay, as mostly it did not
concern Edward Hopper. It did, however, illuminate the major differences
fundamentally between European and American Surrealists when considering theme.
Fort’s essay describes how Americans were more focused on society’s issues while
Europeans generally took a more introspective approach.
Foster, Carter E. Edward Hopper. Milano: Skira, 2009.
Written by the man who curated the Real/Surreal exhibition for the Whitney and a
respected scholar of Hopper’s work, the book helped flush out many basic knowledge
on Hopper as well as illuminate some hairier points. An article by Foster in the
beginning helps explain why a painter of such ordinary scenes should live in the
memories of Americans so astonishingly. Additional articles delve into subjects of
eroticism, his European influences, etc. The book is also full of enormous, color
reproductions.
Foster, Carter E. “Edward Hopper’s Maine in Fog.” In Edward Hopper’s Maine, edited by
Kevin Salatino, 121-131. New York: Delmonico Books, 2011.
Foster’s article in this exhibition catalog was disappointingly most about a specific
work about a boat, however, Foster’s language on Hopper’s allusiveness is elucidating.
He speaks eloquently about how Hopper’s works, especially his Cape Cod scenes can
speak to that sense of foreboding and unfinished narrative.
8
Jackson, Wallace. “To Look  : The Scene of the Seen in Edward Hopper.” The South Atlantic
Quarterly, no. 1 (2004): 133-148.
Here, Wallace takes a new approach to Hopper in relating his work to three main
movements: imagism, Surrealism and Dutch genre painting. This article articulated
where Hopper’s works were related to Di Chirico in theme and style. Focusing there,
that part of the article was useful, while the tangent on imagism is a little hard to
follow. Wallace introduces an interesting connection to Dutch baroque painting at the
end, which certainly deserves a closer look.
Levin, Gail. “Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’, Surrealism, and the War.” Art Institute of
Chicago Museum Studies 22, no. 2 (January 1, 1996): 181–200.
As the name suggests, Levin’s article ties together Hopper’s emotional state of being
while painting Nighthawks. She gives primary accounts as well as secondary readings
of the painting, helping the modern reader truly grasp what the embedded
psychological messages probably are in Nighthawks. The article falls short, however,
when it delves into extraneous details about how the Art Institute of Chicago (see
publisher) came to be in possession of the painting and why they have so many
Hoppers, it was quite dry.
Miller, Dorothy Canning, and Alfred H. Barr Jr. American Realists and Magic Realists. New
York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1943.
While usually one’s sources should be as recent as possible, it is also helpful to look at
primary sources – if they are available – from the period research. This particular
catalog was especially helpful in its intro: the curators establish precisely what they
wanted the show to be about and explain in contemporaneous terms what they believed
this new wave of paintings to be. This exhibition was frequently referenced in other
articles and books as it is the first time Americans try to put their own name and brand
on Surrealism, so it was insightful to read the primary source first had without
commentary from another author with decades of art historical insight to cloud it.
Strand, Mark. Hopper. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994. (Quoted in Jackson, pg. 134.)
Wechsler, Jeffrey. “Magic Realism: Defining the Indefinite.” Art Journal 45, no. 4 (December
1, 1985): 293–98.
Wechsler’s article is a good read for anyone wanting to understand Magic Realism.
The article conveys how artists like French and Tooker could paint almost hyperrealistically but within a surrealistic container. The actual physical layout of the piece
is a drawback as it is split into three small columns, which is difficult to read. There are
numerous illustrations, however, and that is exceedingly helpful when many of the
images are not incredibly famous.