Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967)
Lighthouse Hill, 1927
Oil on canvas
29 1/16 x 40 1/4 in. (73.82 x 102.24 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Purnell, 1958.9

Along with George Bellows, Edward Hopper was one of Robert Henri’s most gifted pupils. While many of his colleagues painted the urban daily routine, Hopper preferred to investigate the emotions of quiet melancholy and pensiveness in both his urban views and his landscapes. Lighthouses in particular drew his attention, and they appear in many of his drawings, prints, and paintings. During the summer of 1927, Hopper vacationed at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, where he sketched the lighthouse called Two Lights, and the keeper’s cottage. Situated on Lighthouse Hill, the monumental structure was operated by a Captain Upton, whose cottage also appeared in several of the artist’s works.

Hopper’s self-stated mission as an artist was to capture his personal impressions of nature; he acknowledged that he took particular pleasure painting sunlight against the side of a house. He was also particularly interested in order and proportion, paying careful attention to the relationships between the forms in his paintings. Hopper’s principal focus in Lighthouse Hill is the play of light on the buildings, viewed from a dramatically foreshortened angle near the water’s edge. Although the surf near Lighthouse Hill was often quite dramatic and rough, Hopper turned his back to the water, deliberately choosing a vantage point that eliminated the rocky shoreline and crashing waves. The tall white structure looms large over the viewer, both protective and forbidding. The late afternoon sun is strong against the whitewashed, curved walls, casting long, deep shadows on the undulating hillside. The effect is one of moody introspection, lending a melancholy majesty to the lighthouse, and by extension, to its solitary task. During the same year, Hopper also painted Captain Upton’s House, featuring the keeper’s cottage, and returned to the subject two years later, painting Lighthouse at Two Lights, in which he reversed the vantage point he used in Lighthouse Hill. In each, the buildings are strongly silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky, conveying Hopper’s love of lighthouses and light.