The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York has lent two paintings by Edward Hopper to the White House. ‘Cobb’s Barns, South Truro’ and ‘Burly Cobb’s House, South Truro’, both oil on canvas works painted between 1930 and 1933 in Cape Cod, are currently on view in the Oval Office.
The paintings from the Whitney, which holds the world’s largest archive of Hopper’s works, were created while Hopper and his wife were renting a summer cottage in South Truro. From the home, Hopper executed a series of drawings and paintings of the buildings on his landlord’s farm, capturing the structures from various angles and at different times of the day. Both of the paintings from the Whitney capture Hopper’s masterful use of light and the quiet stillness that pervades much of his work.
The two Hopper paintings will join Rembrandt Peale’s ‘George Washington,’ George Henry Story’s ‘Abraham Lincoln,’ Thomas Moran’s ‘The Three Tetons,’ Childe Hassam’s ‘The Avenue in the Rain,’ and Norman Rockwell’s ‘Statue of Liberty,’ all of which belong to the permanent White House collection.
