Our History
The house of Edward Hopper’s youth was built in 1858 by the artist's maternal grandfather, John Smith. Smith’s daughter Elizabeth married Garret Hopper in 1878 and the newlyweds moved into the house with Elizabeth’s widowed mother. Marion, their first child, was born in 1880 and Edward, in 1882.
The Nyack of Edward’s boyhood was a fast growing center of transportation and manufacturing. The rail terminal served 30 passenger trains a day; the port was used for steamboats and a cross-Hudson ferry. The town boasted three shipyards; six shoe factories, four cigar factories, a church organ factory and a piano factory. After the financial panic of 1893, many factories closed. The young Hopper was greatly influenced by the one industry that continued well into the 20th century--boat building. He spent many hours after school around the docks and even built his own catboat and considered becoming a marine architect. Edward’s love of boats and the water is reflected in his work throughout his career.
After graduating from Nyack High School in 1899, Edward started commuting to New York City, where he enrolled, at the behest of his mother, at the New York School of Illustrating, but soon transferred to the New York School of Art. He taught drawing classes in the parlor of his Nyack home on Saturdays. After three trips to Paris from 1906 to 1910, he moved permanently to New York City, first renting a room on East 59th Street. In 1913 he moved to an apartment and studio at 3 Washington Square North, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1924 he married Josephine Nivison, an artist who devoted her life to his career and served as a model for many of his paintings. From 1930 to 1966, Edward and Jo spent summers in a house they had built in South Truro on Cape Cod, MA. On the way up to the Cape, they would stop in Nyack to pick up their car and visit his sister Marion, who never married and lived in the family house all her life.
Marion, Edward, and Josephine Hopper died in 1965, 1967, and 1968 respectively, and are buried in a family plot at Nyack's Oak Hill Cemetery, overlooking the Hudson River. Upon her death, Josephine bequeathed all of her husband’s remaining notes, drawings, and paintings to the Whitney Museum of American Art, where they remain to this day. After Marion’s death in 1965, the Hopper House sat unattended. It was dilapidated, boarded up and overgrown with wisteria. The house was scheduled for demolition in 1970, but neighbors were determined to save it. With the support of many people in Nyack, a committee was formed and incorporated in 1971, as the Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Foundation, a non-profit organization. Trustees and members contributed their time, expertise, and labor to restoring the aging house.
The exterior of the house and most of the interior were created in the style loosely called "Queen Anne." As you enter, the rooms on the left are part of the original house built in the Federal style, indicated by the classic simplicity of the mantelpiece, the faithfully restored plaster molding, and the wide floorboards. The room to the right, with a ceiling of polished wood and a tiled fireplace, was added in 1882 the year of Edward's birth. To the right at the back of the house was the kitchen.
In 2000, the Edward Hopper Landmark Preservation Foundation received the distinction of being listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Edward Hopper House Art Center