That's it, blame it on the rain. You could've walked the few blocks.Celine was half an hour late for our date at the Whitney Museum. She took the LIRR from Long Island (where else) and hopped on the bus at Penn Station to get to the east side. A huge mistake on a rainy day. What you get in Manhattan you just can't get anywhere else - horrible traffic and slow-moving crosstown buses. The city streets are transformed into endless parking lots. It doesn't help that New York pedestrians forget how to walk fast on wet days.
So if it's a choice between having the subway doors close on your face, or if you're lucky enough to make it inside, getting whacked by backpacks loaded with every high tech gadget Apple can offer and spending an hour on the bus trying to get to the other side of town, I'd easily cherry-pick the underground. And you can forget about hailing a cab, the big-tipper hedge-fund guys have monopoly of those vehicles.
I didn't mind waiting for her at the lobby. People were friendly, even as they shook off the rain from their bodies like dogs and were politely handed plastic umbrella bags by the museum attendant. Being 5 feet or less, Celine boasted that she was in perfect company in the bus - all the riders were short. I could only wish that it was a short ride too! Knowing her, nothing could've stopped her from striking a pleasant conversation with the person next to her making any long soggy bus-riding experience with midgets interesting. Oh, she's going to hate me for this!
After a quick and rather late lunch, we rushed to the second floor gallery. The sign reads: Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time. With her vast knowledge of modern art and being a Hopper enthusiast, it is like having Celine as my personal docent. Move over audio guide, she can help me untangle the mysteries behind every painting here.
We will recall Edward Hopper and his most famous and recognizable painting Nighthawks that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. Often without figures, his paintings can depict loneliness and isolation. The streets are empty of cars, the colors soft and the unusual lighting captures the lonely mood of his subjects. There is a clear disconnect among the individuals as in Soir Bleu where the cast of characters appear to be detached from one another. Hopper did it like no other, how to convey what it's like to be alone in a crowd.
The central point of this exhibition examines his work in the context of his relationship to his contemporaries, the artistic community of the Ashcan School. Most of the works on display were drawn from the Whitney's extensive permanent collection. Some of his most iconic work include scenes from the bustling streets of New York City at the turn of the century and later, the small-town landscapes and cottages around Cape Cod in Massachusetts, which are among my favorites. Born in New York and a solitary man always at home by the sea, it is clear where his inspiration came from.
Two of the most striking work by Hopper are prominent in my mind. Above, New York Interior and Seven AM. His simplified shapes and details and bleak setting speak plenty of his feeling of solitude. And from among his contemporaries, my pick is Martin Lewis and his print Shadow Dance.
Hopper and his friends, they were the realist painters who were willing to paint what they saw on the streets.
Hopper and his friends, they were the realist painters who were willing to paint what they saw on the streets.Celine and I walked out of the Whitney Museum saying very little to each other but very much in awe with what we just viewed - some of the rarely exhibited works of Edward Hopper and the painters of the Ashcan era.
