Office at Night
Edward Hopper, 1940
Image not available: work still under copyright
Office at Night is an 1940 oil-on-canvas painting by Edward Hopper, the American realist who devoted his career to quiet scenes of urban life. It shows a nearly empty office: a middle-aged man in a three-piece suit sits behind his desk, while a young woman in a short-sleeved blue dress stands at an open filing cabinet. Lamplight and light from the window create a hushed, nocturnal atmosphere. The high viewpoint suggests that we are looking in from outside, as if from a passing elevated train, an idea Hopper said grew out of brief glimpses of lit offices he had seen from such trains. A notable detail is the curtain stirred by a gust of wind, which accounts both for the sheet of paper lying beside the desk and for the dress pressed against the woman's legs. The man stays absorbed in his papers, and the scene balances routine work against the movement of the world outside.
- Painter
- Edward Hopper
- Date
- 1940
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 56 × 64 cm
- Museum
- Walker Art Center
- Depicts
- desk, lamp, chair, filing cabinet, typewriter, woman, man