PaintingsDirect.com - Art in the News

by Kimberly Stevens
		The jagged coastline of Maine has always been an attraction in its own right. But legendary American painter Edward Hopper, who actually spent only a few summers painting the coast's serene lighthouses and rocky shorelines, had a great deal to do with putting the tiny town of Cape Elizabeth on the map.
		Some of the artist's most famous watercolors, "Light at Two Lights", "Hill and Houses, Maine", "Portland Hill Light" and "Bill Latham's House" were painted during the summer of 1927, when Hopper and his new wife, Jo, returned to Maine for a second summer of painting. (Works from this period can be viewed now at the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC through January 3, 2000.)
		And Cape Elizabeth has never been the same. Every summer, record numbers of tourists come by sailboat, chartered plane and car to the city of Portland, and then make the trek to this tiny tip of coastline to catch a glimpse of what Hopper saw. It is the infamous lighthouse "Two Lights" and a collection of small white clapboard houses in Cape Elizabeth that have become the icons of Maine, immortalized through Hopper's artwork.
		It is possible to buy just about anything in Cape Elizabeth with a "Hopper" on it, including the revered "Two Lights" toilet seat cover. And just about every bar in town will mix up some sort of special Hopper cocktail. Remarkably, the scenes he painted have changed very little since the late twenties, and locals expect as long as there are Hopper fans, there will be one large traffic jam in tiny Cape Elizabeth during summer vacation.
		For a look at more of Hoppers work go to http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/hopper/. For additional works with American themes see the PaintingsDirect exhibition: American Landscape.
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