Sunlight in a Cafeteria

Artist: Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967)

1958

American Paintings and Sculpture

On view, 3rd floor, Modern and Contemporary Art and Design


From the time he was a young man, Edward Hopper was intrigued by people in urban restaurants, where strangers had little interaction. Sunlight in a Cafeteria captures an unsettling tension between the man and woman who are clearly aware of, but do not acknowledge, each other’s presence. This edgy stillness suggests the closed lines of communication in much of modern urban life. As in so many of Hopper’s paintings, the ambiguity in the scene opens up multiple narrative possibilities.

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

40 3/16 × 60 1/8 in. (102.1 × 152.7 cm)

Credit Line

Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903

Accession Number

1961.18.31

Geography

Made in United States

Culture

American

Period

20th century

Classification

Paintings

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Stephen Carlton Clark, b.a. 1903, about 1958 to 1961; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Filip Lipinski, "The Virtual Hopper: Painting between Dissemination and Desire," Oxford Art Journal 37, no. 2 (2014), 162–63, fig. 4
  • Lisa R. Brody et al., "To Varnish or Not to Varnish?," in "Time Will Tell: Ethics and Choices in Conservation," special issue, Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2010), 124–25
  • Patricia Junker, Edward Hopper Women, exh. cat. (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2008), 30-31, fig. 6
  • Walter Wells, Silent Theater: The Art of Edward Hopper (London: Phaidon Press, 2007), 122–23, 127, fig. 83
  • Nicholas Fox Weber, The Clarks of Cooperstown: Their Singer Sewing Machine Fortune, Their Great and Influential Art Collections, Their Forty-Year Feud (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), ill.
  • Michael Conforti et al., The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings, exh. cat. (Williamstown, Mass.: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006), 186, 282, 287–88, 316, 332, ill. p. 282, fig. 211
  • David Anfam et al., Edward Hopper, ed. Sheena Wagstaff, exh. cat. (London: Tate Publishing, 2004), 69, fig. 84
  • Bryan J. Wolf, Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 6–7, fig. 1, 3
  • Gail Levin, Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonné, v. III edition 1 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1995), 360–361, fig. O-356
  • Wieland Schmied, Edward Hopper: Portraits of America (New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1995), 90–91, ill.
  • Maxine Borowsky Junge PhD, LCSW, "The Perception of Doors: A Sociodynamic Investigation of Doors in 20th Century Painting," The Arts in Psychology 21, no. 5 (1994), 349, fig. 3
  • Robert Hobbs, Edward Hopper (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1987), 88–89, ill.
  • "The World of Edward Hopper: The drama of light, the artificiality of nature, the remorseless human comedy," New York Times (September 5, 1971), SM14
  • John W. McCoy and Wendell S. Hadlock, Edward Hopper 1882–1967: Oils, Watercolors, Drawings, exh. cat. (Rockland, Maine: Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1971), fig. 46
  • Edward Hopper and Lloyd Goodrich, Edward Hopper (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1971), 134, 149, ill.
  • William C. Seitz and Lloyd Goodrich, Sa~o Paulo 9, United States of America: Edward Hopper and Environment U.S.A., 1957-1967., exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1967), fig. 36
  • Sidney Bernard, "Edward Hopper, Poet-Painter of Loneliness," Literary Times 4 (April 1965), 11
  • Lloyd Goodrich, Edward Hopper, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1964), 56–57, ill.
  • "Recent Gifts and Purchases," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 28, nos. 2–3 (December 1962), 22–23, 49, ill.
  • Annual Exhibition: Sculpture, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1958), 11
  • "Art: Herds and Old Mavericks," Time Magazine 72, no. 24 (1958), 58, ill.
Object copyright
.
Copyright Not Evaluated
Additional information

Object/Work type

genre (visual works), human figures (visual works), interior architecture

Subject

dresses men sun sunlight windows women

Signed

Signed lower right "EDWARD HOPPER"

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