Nobody Asked Me, But… No. 267: Hotel History: Famous Artist Edward Hopper and His Hotel Management Paintings
The American artist Edward Hopper was known for interest in hotels, motels, tourist homes, and the wide scope of hospitality services. From 1920 through 1925 he worked as a commercial illustrator for Hotel Management and Tavern Topics from the Great Depression through the Cold War. He augmented his knowledge of hospitality services as a frequent guest in several lodgings on the long-distance automobile trips he took with his wife, the artist Josephine Hopper. Beginning in the mid-1920s and through the early 1960s, Hopper explored hospitality services subjects in paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints. Sometimes he titled these works as “hotel” or “motel,” but just as often he did not. More than half are composites of sites, with no small amount of invention and artistic license.