Art Button: Hoppers "Nighthawks"

Edward Hopper (1882 — 1967) was an American painter whose realistic depictions of everyday urban scenes shock the viewer into recognition of the strangeness of familiar surroundings. He strongly influenced the Pop Art and New Realist painters of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as cinema, notably the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock (including Psycho, and Rope). Hopper was a minor-key artist, creating subdued drama out of commonplace subjects "layered with a poetic meaning", inviting narrative interpretations, often unintended. He was praised for "complete verity" in the America he portrayed.