Born in 1882 to a shopkeeper in Nyack, New York State, Edward Hopper is considered among the 20th Century's most important artists, hinting at America's dark underbelly.
Moving to New York at 17, he trained at the School of Illustrating and at the School of Art.
He travelled to France in 1906, the first of many forays to the continent. His European experience was reflected in one his largest canvasses, Soir Bleu.
His fascination with solitary figures and quirky old architecture seemed outdated, and when, at 37, his first solo exhibition opened at New York's Whitney Studio Club, he was still struggling to sell his work.
A successful second show was followed by The House by the Railroad, a stark painting of a rambling old wooden house, later immortalised on screen as the Bates' mansion in Alfred Hitchcock's film, Psycho.
His trademark shadows add unease even to pictures of sunny New England countryside.
Small-town shop parades are loaded with dark corners, peaceful gas stations overlooked by jet-black forests. The slightly sinister edge found in his work is heightened by voyeuristic undertones.
There is a fascination with peering candidly at people through windows - intruding on private moments. Hopper's subjects are frequently engaged in mundane actions, but are made more compelling by the sense that something is about to happen. Background figures lurk at the edges of the picture frame.
In 1942, Hopper produced arguably his best-known work. Nighthawks features a couple drinking in a spartan all-night cafe, brightly framed in an otherwise darkened street.
At the time of his death in 1967, Hopper was still married but it had been a perilously intense relationship. His wife wrote in her diaries that 'Ed is the very centre of my universe... If I'm on the point of being very happy, he sees to it that I'm not.'
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