Sound Experiment Research

Nighthawks is a 1942 oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is Hopper's most famous work and is one of the most recognizable paintings in America. Within months of its completion, it was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago for $3,000 and has remained there ever since.

The best-known of Hopper's paintings, Nighthawks (1942), is one of his paintings of groups. It shows customers sitting at the counter of an all-night diner. The shapes and diagonals are carefully constructed. The viewpoint is cinematic—from the sidewalk, as if the viewer were approaching the restaurant. The diner's harsh electric light sets it apart from the dark night outside, enhancing the mood and subtle emotion. As in many Hopper paintings, the interaction is minimal. The restaurant depicted was inspired by one in Greenwich Village. Both Hopper and his wife posed for the figures, and Jo Hopper gave the painting its title. The inspiration for the picture may have come from Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Killers, which Hopper greatly admired, or from the more philosophical A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.  In keeping with the title of his painting, Hopper later said, “Nighthawks” has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness.

Hopper's biographer, Gail Levin, speculates that Hopper may have been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's "sinister Night Café" [which was showing at a gallery in New York in January 1942. The similarity in lighting and themes makes this possible; it is certainly unlikely that Hopper would have failed to see the exhibition, and as Levin notes, the painting had twice been exhibited in the company of Hopper's own works. Beyond this, there is no evidence that The Night Café exercised an influence on Nighthawks. Although there is no evidence at all (other than the fact that Hopper admired the story.)

Hopper was an avid moviegoer and critics have noted the resemblance of his paintings to film stills. Several of his paintings suggest gangster films of the early 1930s such as Scarface and Little Caesar, a connection that can be seen in the clothes of the customers in the diner. Nighthawks and works such as Night Shadows (1921) anticipate the look of film noir whose development Hopper may have influenced.