Edward Hopper

A late-afternoon glow pervades Hopper’s House by the Railroad, which features a grand Victorian home, its base and grounds obscured by the tracks of a railroad. The tracks create a visual barrier that seems to block access to the house, which is isolated in an empty landscape. The juxtaposition of the house and the railroad tracks may be read as a confrontation between the fixity of tradition and the possibility of mobility in early-twentieth-century America. At the same time, these effects evoke the quiet yet charged atmosphere that would become a hallmark of this artist’s work.

Hopper produced closely observed urban views, landscapes (largely of New England), and interior scenes—all sparsely populated with figures or devoid of them entirely. Although he insisted that his paintings were straightforward representations of the real world, they are often filled with an unmistakable sense of loneliness, estrangement, stillness, and mystery. Light, whether natural or artificial, plays a central role in conjuring mood.

In 1929–30 House by the Railroad was featured in Paintings by 19 Living Americans, The Museum of Modern Art’s first exhibition devoted exclusively to American art. It was acquired by MoMA in 1930, one of the first works to enter the Museum’s collection.