Editing Edward Hopper (section)

=== Years of struggle ===
After returning from his last European trip, Hopper rented a studio in New York City, where he struggled to define his own style. Reluctantly, he returned to illustration to support himself. Being a freelancer, Hopper was forced to solicit for projects, and had to knock on the doors of magazine and agency offices to find business.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|1995b|p=85}}</ref> His painting languished: "it's hard for me to decide what I want to paint. I go for months without finding it sometimes. It comes slowly."<ref name="Levin 1995, p. 88">{{harvnb|Levin|1995b|p=88}}</ref> His fellow illustrator Walter Tittle described Hopper's depressed emotional state in sharper terms, seeing his friend "suffering...from long periods of unconquerable inertia, sitting for days at a time before his easel in helpless unhappiness, unable to raise a hand to break the spell."<ref>{{harvnb|Wagstaff|2004|p=53}}</ref>

From February 22 to March 5, 1912, he was included in the exhibition of The Independents, a group of artists at the initiative of [[Robert Henri]] but did not make any sales.<ref name="Levin 1995, p. 88" />

In 1912, Hopper traveled to [[Gloucester, Massachusetts]], to seek some inspiration and made his first outdoor paintings in America.<ref name="Levin 1995, p. 88" /> He painted ''Squam Light'', the first of many lighthouse paintings to come.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|2001|p=88}}</ref>

In 1913, at the [[Armory Show]], Hopper earned $250 when he sold his first painting, ''Sailing'' (1911), to an American businessman Thomas F. Vietor, which he had painted over an earlier self-portrait.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|2001|p=107}}</ref> Hopper was thirty-one, and although he hoped his first sale would lead to others in short order, his career would not catch on for many more years.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|1995b|p=90}}</ref> He continued to participate in group exhibitions at smaller venues, such as the [[MacDowell Club]] of New York.<ref>{{cite web |last=Levin |first=Gail |title=Hopper, Edward |website=American National Biography Online |date=February 2000 |url=http://www.anb.org/articles/17/17-00423.html |access-date=December 20, 2015}}</ref> Shortly after his father's death that same year, Hopper moved to the 3 [[Washington Square Park|Washington Square]] North apartment in the [[Greenwich Village]] section of [[Manhattan]], where he would live for the rest of his life.

[[File:Edward Hopper - Night Shadows - Oct 1922 Shadowland.jpg|thumb|''Night Shadows'' etching from ''[[Shadowland (magazine)|Shadowland]]'', 1922<ref>{{cite journal |last=Du Bois |first=Guy Pène |title=Edward Hopper, Draughtsman |journal=Shadowland |date=September 1922 – February 1923 |pages=21–22 |url=https://archive.org/details/shadowland07brew/page/n6/mode/2up}}</ref>]]
The following year, he received a commission to create some movie posters and handle publicity for a movie company.<ref>{{harvnb|Wagstaff|2004|p=227}}</ref> Although he did not like the illustration work, Hopper was a lifelong devotee of the cinema and the theatre, both of which he treated as subjects for his paintings. Each form influenced his compositional methods.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|2001|pp=74–77}}</ref>

At an impasse over his oil paintings, in 1915 Hopper turned to etching. By 1923 he had produced most of his approximately 70 works in this medium, many of urban scenes of both Paris and New York.<ref>{{harvnb|Maker|1990|p=12}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kranzfelder |first=Ivo |title=Edward Hopper, 1882–1967: Vision of Reality |location=New York |publisher=Barnes & Noble Books |year=2003 |page=13 |isbn=0760748772}}</ref> He also produced some posters for the war effort, as well as continuing with occasional commercial projects.<ref name="Levin 1995, p. 120">{{harvnb|Levin|1995b|p=120}}</ref> When he could, Hopper did some outdoor oil paintings on visits to New England, especially at the art colonies at [[Ogunquit]], and [[Monhegan Island]].<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|1980|pp=29–33}}</ref>

During the early 1920s his etchings began to receive public recognition. They expressed some of his later themes, as in ''Night on the El Train'' (couples in silence), ''Evening Wind'' (solitary female), and ''The Catboat'' (simple nautical scene).<ref>{{harvnb|Maker|1990|pp=13–15}}</ref> Two notable oil paintings of this time were ''New York Interior'' (1921) and ''New York Restaurant'' (1922).<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|2001|pp=151, 153}}</ref> He also painted two of his many "window" paintings to come: ''[[Girl at Sewing Machine]]'' and ''Moonlight Interior'', both of which show a figure (clothed or nude) near a window of an apartment viewed as gazing out or from the point of view from the outside looking in.<ref>{{harvnb|Levin|2001|pp=152, 155}}</ref>

[[File:Smash The Hun - Dry Dock Dial cover.jpg|thumb|upright|Hopper's prizewinning poster, ''Smash the Hun'' (1919), reproduced on the front cover of the ''[[Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company#The Dry Dock Dial|Morse Dry Dock Dial]]'']]
Although these were frustrating years, Hopper gained some recognition. In 1918, Hopper was awarded the U.S. Shipping Board Prize for his war poster, ''Smash the Hun''. He participated in three exhibitions: in 1917 with the Society of Independent Artists, in January 1920 (a one-man exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club, which was the precursor to the Whitney Museum), and in 1922 (again with the Whitney Studio Club). In 1923, Hopper received two awards for his etchings: the [[Logan Medal of the Arts|Logan Prize]] from the [[Chicago Society of Etchers]], and the W.&nbsp;A. Bryan Prize.<ref>{{cite book |last=Levin |first=Gail |title=Edward Hopper at Kennedy Galleries |location=New York |publisher=Kennedy Galleries |year=1977 |chapter=Chronology}}</ref>