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Label TextHopper was widely known as an impressionist landscape painter and watercolorist before the 1920s. Automat is one of the first realistic urban scenes he produced, and is considered to be a defining painting in his career. The work features a solitary female figure in an automat, a former dining trend invented between World War I and World War II, where patrons used coins to retrieve meals from small, glass faced cubicles. In New York, automats were a light-filled beacon in the night for a cup of coffee, with tables set aside exclusively for single women. Hopper’s cinematic image of a woman dining alone personifies how the modern era was changing the course of human interaction, replacing former hubs of bustling conversation with lonely, machine-age spaces.
Exhibition History"The American Century: Art and Culture, 1900 - 2000 (Part I: 1900 - 1950), Whitney Museum of American Art, N. Y., April 15 - Sept. 15, 1999

"From Body to Being: Reflections on the Human Image," Des Moines Art Center, Feb. 1 - May 4, 1997

"EDWARD HOPPER AND THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION", Whitney Museum of American Art, N. Y., June 21 - Oct. 15, 1995

"American Art in the Twentieth Century: Painting and Sculpture," Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, Sept. 17 - Dec. 12, 1993

"Die Wahrheit des Sichtbaren" (The Truth of the Real), Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, June 21 - Sept. 20, 1992

"Selected Works From the Des Moines Art Center's Permanent Collection," organized by the Waterloo Municipal Galleries, sponsored by the National Bank of Waterloo, Oct. 24 - Nov. 20, 1983, (circulated to: Charles H. MacNider Museum, Mason City, Jan. 15 - Feb. 26, 1984; Muscatine Art Center, April 1 - May 13, 1984; Cedar rapids Museum of f Art, May 27 - July 1, 1984; Sioux City Art Center, July 15 - August 26, 1984)

"Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist," Whitney Museum of American Art, Sept. 16, 1980 - Jan. 18, 1981, (circulated to: Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 3 - Nov. 29, 1981; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dec. 16, 1981- Feb. 10, 1982; did not travel on European tour)

"Two Hundred Years of American Painting," Maryland Science Center, Jan. 16 - Feb. 6, 1977, sponsored by The City of Baltimore, organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art under a grant from the United States Information Agency, European title "2 Jahrzehnte Amerikanische Malerei: 1920-1940," (American Modern Art Between the Two World Wars), (circulated to: Stadtische Kunsthalle, Dusseldorf, June 10- Aug. 12, 1979; Kunsthaus, Zurich, Aug. 23-Oct. 28, 1979; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Nov. 10-Dec. 30, 1979)

"Two Hundred Years of American Painting," organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art under a grant from the United Stated Information Agency, (circulated to: Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany "200 Jahre Amerikanische Malerei 1776-1976," June 30 - Aug. 1, 1976; Muzej savremene umetnosti, Belgrade, "200 godina americkog slikarstva 1776-1976," Aug. - Sept. 1976; Museum Narodowe, Warsaw, "Dwiescie lat mararstwa amerykanskiego," Nov. 15 - Dec. 10, 1976)

"The Kirsch Years 1936-1958," A testimonial exhibition assembled from the collections of the DMAC and the University of Nebraska Art Galleries, Lincoln, Des Moines Art Center, Jan. 7 - Feb. 10, 1974; University of Nebraska Art Galleries, Lincoln, Feb. 25 - Mar. 31, 1974

"Selections of Paintings by Edward Hopper," Newport Harbor Art Museum, Calif., Jan. 12-Feb. 23, 1972, (circulated to: Pasedena Art Museum, Mar. 7-Apr. 30, 1972)

"Environment U.S.A. - 1957-1967," organized by the National collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., (circulated to: IX Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sept. 22, 1967 - Jan. 8, 1968; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Feb. 24 - Mar. 31, 1968)

"Twentieth Century Art from Iowa Collections," Schaeffer Gallery, Grinnell College, Mar. 28 - Apr. 19, 1966

"Edward Hopper Retrospective," Whitney Museum of American Art, N.Y., Sept. 29 - Nov. 29, 1964, (circulated to: Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 18, 1964 - Jan. 31, 1965; Detroit Institute of Arts, Feb. 18 - Mar. 21, 1965; City Art Museum of St. Louis, Apr. 7 - May 9, 1965)

"Four Centuries of American Art", Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Nov. 17, 1963 - Jan. 19, 1964

"Edward Hopper," University of Arizona, Tuscon, Apr. 2 - May 19, 1963

"The Painting of Light," Des Moines Art Center, Mar. 3 - 31, 1960

"Art Day," Winterset, July 25, 1959

"Edward Hopper," Boston Arts Festival, Institute of Contemporary Art, June 5 - 28, 1959

"Edward Hopper Retrospective Exhibition," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Feb. 11 - Mar. 26, 1950, (circulated to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Apr. 13 - May 14, 1950; Detroit Institute of Arts, June 4 - July 2, 1950)

"An Exhibition of Paintings, Water Colors and Etchings by Edward Hopper," Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, March 11 to April 25, 1938, no. 29

"A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures," Art Institute of Chicago, June 1- Nov. 1, 1933.

"Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans," The Museum of Modern Art, December 13, 1929 – January 13, 1930, no. 33.

"Edward Hopper's New York", Whitney Museum, NY, Oct 9, 2022 - Mar 5, 2023
Published ReferencesFINE ARTS, vol.20, June 1933, ill. p.47

ART DIGEST, Feb. 15, 1950, ill. p.10

"Edward Hopper Retrospective Exhibition," Whitney Museum of American Art, N. Y., 1950, exh. cat. no.20

IOWAN MAGAZINE, Oct./Nov. 1958, ill. p.48

"The Painting of Light," Des Moines Art Center, 1960, exh. cat. no.46

ART FORUM, May 1963, ill. p.40

AMERICAN HERITAGE, Aug. 1965, ill. p.8

Robert L. Polley, ed., GREAT ART TREASURES IN AMERICA'S SMALLER MUSEUMS, Waukesha, Wisconsin, 1967, color ill. p.109

DES MOINES SUNDAY REGISTER, May 28, 1967, ill.

Lloyd Goodrich, EDWARD HOPPER, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., N. Y., 1971, ill. p.196

THE ARTISTS' AMERICA, American Heritage Publishing Co., N. Y., 1973, ill. p.300

400 LANDMARKS OF AMERICA, Country Beautiful, Waukesha, WI, 1974, color ill. p.157

Eloise Spaeth, AMERICAN ART MUSEUMS, AN INTRODUCTION TO LOOKING, Third Edition, Harper & Row, 1975, ill. p.139

Nancy Heller, "Edward Hopper: Alone in America," AMERICAN ARTIST, Vol.40, Jan. 1976, color ill. no.402, p.73

"Two Hundred Years of American Painting," Baltimore Museum of Art, 1976, exh. cat. no.37, ill.

"Two Hundred Years of American Painting," Maryland Science Center, 1977, exh. cat. no.33

"American Modern Art Between the Two World Wars," Baltimore Museum of Art, 1979, exh. cat. no.63, b/w ill. p.78

Mahonri Sharp Young, "Edward Hopper: The Ultimate Realist," APOLLO MAGAZINE, Vol.CXII, No.229, Mar. 1981, color ill. p.187

KEYSERS GROSSES, STIL-LEXIKON EUROPA 780 BIS 1980, Keyserche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich, 1982, ref. no.10038, p.491, b/w ill. p.491

Lloyd Saxton, THE INDIVIDUAL MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY, Fifth Edition, Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, CA, 1983, p.193

THE GREAT ARTISTS: THEIR LIVES, WORKS, AND INSPIRATIONS - HOPPER, Part 88, Vol.4, Marshall Cavendish Partworks Ltd., London, 1986, color ill. p.2799

Robert Hobbs, EDWARD HOPPER, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., N. Y., 1987, credit & ref. p.72, color ill. p.73

Jill Donnie Snyder, LITERARY PORTRAITS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN AMERICAN PROSE AND POETRY FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH, MacMillan Publishing Co., N. Y., 1989, cover ill.

Derek Sayer, THE VIOLENCE OF ABSTRACTION (THE ANALYTIC FOUNDATIONS OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM), Basil Blackwell Ltd., Oxford, England, 1987, ref. on back inside jacket flap, b/w ill. on front jacket

Jin Park, ed., EDWARD HOPPER 1993 ENGAGEMENT CALENDAR, MacMillan Publishing Company in association with Callaway, N. Y., 1992, color ill.

Leo Jones, COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR PRACTICE, Cambridge University Press, N. Y., 1992, b/w ill. p.10

EDWARD HOPPER 1992 CALENDAR, Graphique de France, Boston, MA, 1992, color ill.

Marie A. Boyle and Gail Zyla, PERSONAL NUTRITION, Second edition, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN, 1992, color ill. p.1 & Table of Contents, p. viii

Christos M. Joachimides and Norman Rosenthal, AMERIKANISCHE KUNST IM 20. JAHRHUNDERT: MALEREI UND PLASTIK, 1913 - 1993, Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft e.V., Royal Academy of Arts, Prestel, 1993, exh. cat. color ill. pl.58

Marguerite D. Intemann, EL TEMA DE LA SOLEDAD EN LA NARRATIVA DE SOLEDAD PUERTOLAS, Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, N. Y., 1994, ref. p.16, b/w ill. fig.1.2

John Cheever, THE UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER, The Academy Chicago Publishers, 1994, color cover ill.

Maria Costantino, EDWARD HOPPER, Barnes and Noble, Inc., with Brompton Books, 1995, color ill. pp.44-45

Mark Van de Voorde, HELP! IK BEN GELUKKIG SCHIZOFRENIE VAN EEN SAMENLEVING, Pelckmans, 2014, color cover ill.

Allan G. Johnson, HUMAN ARRANGEMENTS: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY, Brown & Benchmark, Dubuque, 1996, 1992, 1989, 1986, credit p.490, color ill. p.155, (p.163 in third ed., p.162 in second ed.; published by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich in earlier eds.)

DIVAN, TIDSKRIFT FOR PSYKOANALYS OCH KULTUR, Oct. 1996, color ill. p.23

GERADEAUS SPRACHBUCH ACHT, Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Leipzig, 1997, color ill. p.17

Penny King and Clare Roundhill "Artists' Workshop: Sports and Games". Crabtree Publishing Company: New York, 1997: 23 (color ill.)

"Werkheft Fur Das Jahr 1998 Im Erzbistum Hamburg"(First Edition). Pastorale Dienststelle des Erzbistums hamburg: Germany, 1997: ill. b/w pg.58; credit line pg.126.

"America A to Z". The Readers Digest Association, Inc.: USA (1997): 359 (cover of TIME)

Des Moines Art Center, AN UNCOMMON VISION, 1998

Margaret Iversen, "In the Blind Field: Hopper and the Uncanny" ART HISTORY 21 (September 1998): 409-429 (ill.pg.419; discussion 418)

"Celebrate the Century: A Celebration of Commemorative Stamps, 1920-1929". Time Life Custom Publishing: USA, 1998: 61 (color); 57 (color detail); cover (color detail)

Jacqueline Ellis, "Silent Witnesses: Representations of Working-Class Women in the United States". Bowling Green State University Popular Press: Bowling Green, OH, 1998 (b/w ill. frontispiece).

Ingvar Holm and Jeanette von heidenstam. "Det berattasi varlden: Utomeuropeisk novell-konst under 100ar" (Natur Och Kultur: Stockholm 1998): 343 (reps.)

Holm and von Heidenstam, BOKFORLAGET NATUR OCH KULTUR, Stockholm, Sweden, 1999, ill. p.343

Stephanie Ashford et al, "Learning English, Green Line 6 New," Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart, 2000, p.76

"Edward Hopper"(Exh. Cat.) Tokyo and New York: APT International, Inc., 2000, pg.39, Fig.3 (Color reproduction)

Harald Grimen. "Samfunnsvitenskapelige tenkemater". Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 2000, pg.235 (repro.)

Rolando Ferez,"The Lining of Our Souls: Excursions into Selected Paintings of Edward Hopper". Brooklyn, New York; Cool Grove Press, 2002. Repro (color) XII.

"Edward Hopper", Taschen Portfolio, Taschen, Inc., 2003.

"Bi No Kyojin (The Greatest Artists)" Japanese television documentary, Robin/Tani Media Factory and TV Tokyo, 2003

Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs, "Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, Third Compact Edition", Pearson Education/Prentice Hall, 2003, color image
plate 1-3

Matt S. Backer "Pursuing Desire: A Lacanian Approach to the Paintings of Edward Hopper", article in academic journal "Oculus", Indiana University Art History Association, April 2003, b/w ill. pg.59

"Edward Hopper 2005 Wall Calendar", Graphique de France, 2004

"Edward Hopper"(Exh, Catalog) , edited by Sheena Wagstaff. Tate Publishing, 2004.
Color reproduction pg.138-139; 246.

Storage tin featuring Edward Hopper's "Automat", Tate Modern Museum/Publishing, in correlation to "Edward Hopper Retrospective", 2004

Postcards, Tate Modern Museum/Publishing, in correlation to "Edward Hopper Retrospective", 2004

Mini prints, Tate Modern Museum/Publishing, in correlation to "Edward Hopper Retrospective", 2004

Large prints, Tate Modern Museum/Publishing, in correlation to "Edward Hopper Retrospective", 2004

"Edward Hopper"(Exh.Catalog, German Edition), edited by Hatje Cantz. Tate Publishing, 2004. Color reproduction 138-139; 247

"Hopper 2005" teNeues engagement calendar. teNeues Publishing Company. Pg.49, 2004

2005 Edward Hopper Calendar (February), Graphique de France. color ill., 2004

Video/DVD, "Girl In A Picture", Luna Productions and Ultimate Youth (Community Group), 2004

Teachers' Resource File to accompany Jenry Danzer, Jorge Klor de Alva, Louise Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. "The Americans". McDougal Littell: Evanston, IL: (among set of overhead transparencies).

Hallie Smith "Self and the City", article in "New York Moves", December 2005 edition, issue 22, pgs.34-35, 112

NHK HiVision program "Art Mystery Museum: Pictures of Night", produced by Telecomstaff (Japan), December 5, 2005.

"The Culture of Food: The Dialectic of Material Conditions, Art, and Leisure", 2006, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2006, cover ill.

Praxis: Sprache & Literatur, 8 Gymnasium" Westerman, 2007, color ill. pg. 70

"Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture", Christie's, 2007, color ill. pg. 53

Carol Troyen, Judith A. Barter, Janet L. Comey, Elliot Bostwick Davis, and Ellen E. Roberts, "Edward Hopper", MFA Publications, 2007, color detail pg. 110, color ill. pg.119, index pg. 248

Patricia Junker "Edward Hopper Women", Seattle Art Museum, 2008, color ill. pg. 28

Denis McBride "Awakening To Yourself: Reflecting with Paintings, Volume Two", Redemptorist Publications, 2009, color ill. pg. 146

2013 Agenda Diary, Reunion des musees nationaux- Grand Palais, 2012, color ill. September

Alain Cueff, "Edward Hopper Entractes", Flammarion, 2012

"Framing Film: Cinema and the Visual Arts", Edited by Steve Allen and Laura Hubner, Intellect Books, 2012, b/w ill. pg.209

"Living as One", Magnet magazine, No.104, Summer 2014, Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd., color ill. pg.8, color detail pg.9

Patterson Sims, "Richard Estes' Realism", Portland Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2014, color ill. pg. 8

Nancy K. Anderson and Charles Brock, "Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In", National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2014, color ill. pg.58

Mark Van de Voorde, "Help! Ik ben gelukkig Shizofrenie van een samenleving",Kalmthout: Pelckmans, 2015. Cover illustration.

Carolyn Troyer, "It was never about the food: Edward Hopper's restaurant paintings", The Magazine Antiques, 2016, color ill. pg. 10, 102.

"50 Ideer Der Andrede Verden", Redigeret Af Hans, 2015, color ill. pg 320

Ursual Lindqvist, "Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor: Contemplating the Art of Existence", University of Washing Press, 2016, black and white ill. pg. 54.

Eric Mezil, ed. "Djamel Tath", Collection Lambert, Avignon, 2018, color ill. end page.

Leo G. Mazow, "Edward Hopper and the American Hotel", (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibition), Yale University Press, 2019, pg. 49, illus. 3.5.

Kim Conaty, "Edward Hopper's New York", Whitney Museum, Yale University Press, ill. p. 152, pl. 83, text p. 143, photo credit, p. 255, lenders to exhibition p. 242

DimensionsFrame: 36 3/4 × 44 3/4 × 4 in. (93.3 × 113.7 × 10.2 cm)
Canvas: 28 1/8 × 35 in. (71.4 × 88.9 cm)
Image (visible): 27 1/2 × 35 5/8 in. (69.9 × 90.5 cm)
Accession Number 1958.2
Classificationspainting
CopyrightPublic Domain
SignedEdward Hopper (l,r oil paint)
ProvenanceArtist; (Rehn Gallery, New York); Mr. and Mrs. Lesley G. Sheafer, New York [purchased from the previous, 1927]; (Rehn Gallery, New York); Mr. and Mrs. Jacob H. Rand, Kew Gardens, New York [purchased from previous,1948]; (Frank K. M. Rehn, Inc., New York); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from previous, 1958]

Images (2)

Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines

Audio (2)

Audio Transcript

Edward Hopper (American, 1882 – 1967)
Automat, 1927

Run Time: 4:33
Recorded by Patricia Junker, Anne M. Barwick curator of American Art at the Seattle Art Museum

I’m Patricia Junker, and I am the Anne M. Barwick curator of American Art at the Seattle Art Museum. This painting is Automat, 1927 by Edward Hopper.

He was really referring to a very particular kind of restaurant, that was a, a vending-machine restaurant. So the interesting thing is in this picture we don’t see vending machines. We only know the kind of restaurant it is because of the title that he gave it.

Now, what’s interesting is: who is this woman, sitting alone, in this, what would have been a very large, and at lunchtime, very bustling, automat restaurant. And look at what time of day it is. She’s sitting there in the, in the middle of the night. She’s sitting there—it’s dark outside. She’s sitting in this brightly illuminated restaurant where anyone could come in at any hour of the day and have a 5-cent cup of coffee. And she’s sitting there by herself at a table for two. And she’s sitting in the window. She’s sitting right near the door. And she’s sitting near the stairway that leads down to a lower level. So anybody walking into the restaurant, walking down the stairs, or walking by on the street outside, would see her. She’s really on display.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about Edward Hopper’s art is that nothing in his pictures is arbitrary. And every detail is something that he remembered from an experience and that, that stayed in his memory, that really impressed him and that became more fascinating as time went on as he thought about these things. So the details in this picture, and in any Edward Hopper painting, are always just full of meaning.

So, we have in the automat window the bowl of fruit. Now, the automat used bowls of fruit in its windows as a display for to entice the public in. It was a way of saying: “Look, everything that you find in the Automat will be sumptuous and fresh,” even though it was coming out of vending machines. So this was a display that one would see in the automat window. But interestingly, because he’s, kind of, put it there on display with the young woman, we have to wonder: Is she also a sort of a young thing ripe for the taking, you might say in a common way. So maybe he’s making that reference to her by putting her there with that bowl of fruit. Because she does certainly look like she’s enticing someone into the automat perhaps by sitting so close to the window.

Because he’s cropped this scene so close that we don’t really even see much of the restaurant. We’re staring at her and we’re watching, we’re seeing every little thing about her. The fact that she has one glove on and one glove off. It’s obviously cold outside. She’s sitting near the radiator, but she’s left her coat on and she’s left her gloves on. She’s kind of nervously, or maybe absent-mindedly, playing with her coffee cup. And she’s staring down. She has no real sense, I think, of anybody else in the room or anything going on outside or any passersby in any part of the restaurant. And so she’s either completely lost in herself, or she’s so self-conscious that she’s kind of looking down in hopes that no one is looking at her. I always feel that way when I’m dining alone in a restaurant myself, so I can understand, I think, what she might, what a woman like her would be feeling.

This is the beginning of the Edward Hopper that we know and love, though in 1927 nobody recognized that. Nobody saw this for the major new direction that it was in his art. When he showed this painting in 1927, he was still known as a landscape painter and primarily as a watercolorist and so his fame had come in 1924 with a lot of his watercolor paintings of Gloucester, of old houses in Gloucester. In 1927, when he had his next show in New York, he included four oil paintings, including this one, which was the largest of the four in the show. So he was obviously intending this to be a major statement. Critics really loved the watercolors. They loved the etchings from years earlier, that he’d also included in the show, but they thought that the paintings really lacked something. And they said particularly of this one that it lacked any sort of sense of control over the composition. And I think maybe they’re talking about all the emptiness and the fact that the fruit bowl is kind of off-center and behind her. They really were kinda missing the point. And no one really appreciated, I think, where Hopper was going in his art. So in 1927, though this painting was bought in 1927 by a famous collector, it took several years for Hopper to gain his reputation on paintings like this. And then two years later he paints Chop Suey another restaurant picture, which is almost its pair. And so the rest is history. He quickly then became famous for pictures like this. And these are the pictures that we know and love today.

Automat
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Hopper
1917
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Hopper
1934
Photo Credit: Richard Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Hopper
1921
Photo Credit: Richard Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Hopper
1920
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Willis Redfield
date unknown
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Edward Dugmore
1970
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
John Edward Heliker
date unknown
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Lyonel Feininger
1951
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Alex Brown
2003
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
George Bellows
1920