Some of Edward Hopper’s Earliest Paintings Are Copies of Other Artists’ Work

Nora McGreevy | Smithsonianmag.com | 1st October 2020

New research has found that, in his formative years, Hopper copied the works of others. One curator concludes that this means he was not an “American original”. This sounds excessively critical – after all, Hopper’s enigmatic work helped define America’s sense of itself. More likely as a casualty is Hopper’s claim that his only formative influence was “myself”. “Young Hopper copied freely and regularly, which is to say, he learned to see.”