Nighthawks

On a dark street corner late at night, a diner emerges, casting a pale glow.

At the cherry-wood counter sit three silent patrons.

In the background stand large coffee urns with a metallic gleam.

Only the server in his white uniform seems to gaze out at the world outside.

The loneliness of a great city.

A gathering of strangers, indifferent to one another.

A scene that truly existed in New York's Greenwich Village.

For years, this painting has been spoken of in such terms.

Yet, in truth, the diner depicted here never existed.

And the solitary patrons inside are not strangers at all.

Hopper lived for years in his Manhattan studio.

A city he walked every day and knew intimately.

Yet in December 1941, that familiar scenery changed completely.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States plunged into war.

Air-raid sirens wailed across the streets of New York.

At night, blackouts were enforced for fear of enemy submarines and air raids.

A city shrouded in darkness and anxiety.

Amid it all, the fifty-nine-year-old Hopper shut himself inside his studio.

As if seeking refuge from the turmoil outside, he turned to the canvas.

He pieced together memories of buildings from his neighborhood,

creating an imaginary diner that existed only in his mind.

Whom did he ask to pose as the patrons?

No one.

Hopper stood before a mirror and posed for himself.

The solitary man seen from behind.

The man holding a cigarette, seated beside the woman.

Both were figures of the artist himself.

And the woman in the red blouse, holding a sandwich.

Her model was his wife, Jo.

She supported her husband's creative work, keeping detailed records in a ledger.

Walls of dull yellow ochre.

Base of the facade, a strong jade green.

Together in the studio, the two built this quiet world.

In a letter to her sister-in-law, Jo wrote:

"Ed has been steadily at it for a month and a half."

"Hardly having time to be caught up in the excitement of war."