Josephine Nivison Hopper

Although often overshadowed by her husband, the painter Edward Hopper, Josephine Nivison Hopper was an accomplished artist in her own right. By the time she married Hopper in 1924, she had studied at the New York School of Art under Robert Henri, exhibited her work alongside Pablo Picasso, Amadeo Modigliani, and Man Ray, and routinely published drawings in the New York Tribune, the Evening Post, and the Chicago Herald Examiner. Throughout their tumultuous marriage, Josephine served as Edward’s sole female model. The couple influenced each other’s practices, working in close proximity in their fourth-floor walk-up off Washington Square. As her husband’s reputation took off—thanks in part to her management of his career—Josephine’s work waned and her delicate watercolors and oils never achieved the fame of her partner’s paintings. Her estate, along with her husband’s, was bequeathed to the Whitney Museum of American Art upon her death; the museum would dispose of many of her paintings, apparently seeing little value in them.