Frederic Remington: A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings, 2 vols. - book reviews

This catalogue raisonne has been published eleven years after its completion. It reflects additions, corrections, and deletions Levin discovered between 1984 and 1995, but it does not incorporate the publications and exhibition records for those years. Although the slipcased four-volume set weighs seventeen pounds (in spite of a CD-ROM that includes some of the scholarly data), it is not complete. Hopper's dry-points and etchings, most of which were executed between 1915 and 1923 and are catalogued and illustrated in Edward Hopper: The Complete Prints, and Levin's text for Edward Hopper as Illustrator are not included in the catalogue raisonne.(7) Because her 1979 and 1995 catalogues of illustrations are organized so differently, determining whether or not works have been added or deleted is difficult.

Levin devotes a printed volume respectively to illustrations, watercolors, and paintings in oil. Volumes two and three contain only entries, illustrations, and an index of titles, with no introduction discussing the techniques or historical context peculiar to Hopper's employment of each medium. Most of the catalogue entries feature a quotation from the Record Books. Volume one also includes a foreword by the Whitney's current director, David A. Ross, and Levin's acknowledgments, introductory essay, entitled "Edward Hopper: Perspectives on His Life and Work" (with index), and "Notes to the Catalogue."

Levin astutely begins her essay with a section entitled "Critical Fortunes" - the history to 1981 of Hopper's reception by critics, museums, patrons, and the public. Although Hopper and his pictorial works are now American icons, Levin demonstrates that the artist received little recognition for his paintings before he was forty. For her insights on Hopper's reception after 1980, readers should consult her essay, "Edward Hopper: His Legacy for Artists," the only entry on pictorial art in a volume of writings by American authors who wrote literary responses to the memorable images in the exhibition, Edward Hopper and the American Imagination. In this essay, Levin demonstrates that Hopper's images embody the United States not only in this country but also in Europe and throughout the world. The remarks of the Japanese-American artist Ushio Shinohara, which Levin quotes, are powerful: "Hopper is like Haiku - small words but big meaning."(8)

"Biographical Sketch," the second section of Levin's introductory essay for the catalogue raisonne, assesses' the impact of Hopper's life on his artistic development. Such a cogent summary is useful, especially because Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography is 550 pages long. However, since the order of the works in all four volumes of the catalogue raisonne is chronological, a concise chronology, preferably portable, is needed to aid the reader.(9) In the biography, the voices of Jo Hopper, as recorded in her diaries, and the sparse statements of Edward Hopper dominate the narrative and reveal the painfulness of their difficult relationship. Gender issues in general are more fully developed in the full-length biography than in the essay in the catalogue raisonne.