Edvard Hopper is famous for capturing the mood and feel of the mid-20th century in his paintings. From lonely diners and hotel rooms to houses on the shore, his paintings lend a vision of what life was like in those times. One of his artwork Blackwell’s Island, oil painting is leading upcoming Christie’s American Art sale.
The 1928 painting that has never come to auction before will be offered on sale on May 23 at Christie’s with an estimated price of $15 million to $20 million.
Edward Hopper’s Blackwells Island, the work, which has never been offered at auction, is estimated at $15-20 million
Originally known as Hog Island and today known as Roosevelt Island (renamed for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1971), Blackwell’s Island has a rather notorious history. Its varied architecture and isolation is likely what attracted Hopper to the locale.
“My aim in painting is always, using nature as the medium, to try to project upon canvas my most intimate reaction to the subject as it appears when I like it most; when the facts are given unity by my interest and prejudices. Why I select certain subjects rather than others, I do not exactly know, unless it is that I believe them to be the best mediums for a synthesis of my inner experience,” Hopper was saying.
The large-scale oil (five feet wide) has been exhibited at renowned institutions, such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute. Most recently, it was included in the first major retrospective of Hopper’s work at the Grand Palais in Paris.
