?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
EDWARD HOPPER Night Shadows.
Etching on white wove paper, 1921. 175x210 mm; 7x8 1/4 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of approximately 500 printed for the New Republic. Signed and dedicated in pencil, lower right. Partial circular Italia (?) watermark. A brilliant, luminous, richly-inked impression of this important etching, with very strong contrasts and no sign of wear.
This early impression would have been printed by the artist himself, on his selected paper with his own inking. There was a larger edition, printed for The New Republic, New York, and published in a limited edition portfolio for their December 1924 issue, which was made on a different, less absorbent and white tone paper than the artist used for his own smaller, personal editions.
Hopper (1882-1967) began making etchings and drypoints in 1915 with the help of fellow artist Martin Lewis (1881-1962), and he produced 70 prints before he ceased etching in 1928 to focus solely on painting. Night Shadows is a particularly iconic image, epitomizing Hopper's propensity for conveying isolation and stillness through the use of heavy chiaroscuro and strong, dark hatching throughout. He used a bird's-eye vantage point with extended shadows and darkness to intensify the suspense and drama. The artist depicted this same street corner in a painting from 1913, Corner Saloon, now in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Levin 82.
