Sometimes, “art happens.”

For example, this week I got around to doing a tiny project that’s been lurking about and haunting me for a while. It entails recontextualizing Edward Hopper’s iconic painting Nighthawks within a beach setting.

Why do such a thing?

It’s a long, complicated tale involving my “Hopperness” … for another time.

I will just say here that it has to do with wishing that Hopper had been able to reconcile his lighter summer mode of painting sailboats and lighthouses with his darker winter mode of painting “city” scenes.

My project at hand dates back to 2013 when I was sitting at my local beach pub. The sun was setting over the ocean, but I was looking out the other direction when I noticed that the window had a reflection of a “relatively” cheerful scene of folks hanging out at the bar and watching the sunset.

It struck me as a visual reminiscent of Nighthawks, but it was at a beach at sunset rather than at a lonely, dark diner in the city at night. Voilà! It was a reconciliation of his artistic modes (beach vs. city).

Here is the photo that I snapped at the time.

I dubbed it Hopper Sees Hopper.

Unfortunately, I only saw the poor quality after I downloaded it at home.

It made me sad, but I thought I could try to get a better one … “someday.”

Alas, “someday” could never come because the pub replaced their deck between the window and the beach with an enclosed porch. The clear view of the beach from inside was gone, so the ship my project required had sailed.

I’ve watched for similar scenes elsewhere, but nothing has ever come close.

Then I came across the photo last night and decided to try to rescue it with every Photoshop technique I could muster.

This is as close as I could come to something resembling my vision.

Sadly, it’s nowhere near close enough for my taste (i.e. a fail).

Then I decided to go directly to the source and use Hopper’s own art to see if I could come up with something to capture the essence of my vision .

Specifically, I attempted to use Photoshop to move Hopper’s Nighthawks to the coastal setting in his painting The Lee Shore.

Here’s the result of that artistic escapade.

It “sort of” captures the idea (to be clear, only “sort of”).

I dubbed the abomination Happier Hopper.

It turns out the best part of this project wasn’t even the project.

When I was digging around on the internet, I found that I’m not the only one inclined to recontextualize Nighthawks in a beach setting. There are quite a few examples out there.

This X/Twitter post by Jonathon Triest is one of my favorites.

Day 2 of playing w/ @Adobe's Generative Fill

Nighthawks is a 1942 oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper. I wanted the diner to look as if it were in a small town by the shore (rather than in a city as Hopper intended.) For reference, the original painting is outlined in white. pic.twitter.com/OH0c5cddV8

— Jonathon Triest (@jtriest) May 25, 2023

Here’s another fun one from Pinterest.

Best of all, while it isn’t a beach setting, here’s a video that recontextualizes Nighthawks in a very different way. Be sure you click on the post to go the original source, and then expand the video to get the full effect!

So cool!

That made my detour into trying to rescue my old project worth it.

Maybe I’ll snap another, better version of Hopper Sees Hopper … someday.

For now, it’s time for a summer beach break :)

Have a Great July 4th!

Mary