Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work - Tapa dura

Edward Hopper, with the help of his wife, Jo, kept scrupulously detailed notes of all his artwork and business transactions in five accountants' ledger books. Here, in a selection of facsimile pages, we see the artist as businessman, recording everything from exhibitions and reviews to sales, commissions, and resales of his varied works. Hopper sketched most of his paintings and prints in these pages, in either pen and ink or pencil. Occasionally he added a printed reproduction as they became available. In addition to all business transactions associated with the work, Jo Hopper wrote descriptions of the colors and materials used, the subject matter, as well as personal anecdotes. In this intriguing volume, we are given a rare glimpse of this often-unseen aspect of an artist's life. We can see clearly the Hoppers' necessity and penchant for methodical record keeping and how they were able to achieve financial security through the artist's work.

Deborah Lyons is a former curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and co-editor of Edward Hopper and the American Imagination (Norton). She lives in New Jersey.