Village Preservation's video: Edward Hopper s Greenwich Village

Village Preservation joined art history scholar Jason Vartikar, for a webinar that takes a look at Hopper’s relationship to Greenwich Village, especially the restaurants, streetscapes, drugstores, and cafes that make Greenwich Village an iconic destination for so many. This webinar explored Hopper’s works and their relationship to real life in Greenwich Village. Greenwich Village and surrounding neighborhoods have played host to some of the most significant artists and art movements of the 20th century. One of the most well-known artists of the 20th century, Edward Hopper, lived and worked at 3 Washington Square North. His iconic painting Nighthawks (1942) was likely based on a diner at 7th Avenue South and Greenwich Avenue featuring an amalgamation of features of diners throughout the Village. If not for the landmark protections put in place by the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969 and the subsequent landmarking of the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension I in 2006, the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II in 2010, and the South Village Historic District in 2013 – all of which Village Preservation contributed years of hard work, extensive research, and advocacy to landmarking – we would not have access to the streetscapes that inspired Hopper and generations of other artists. Participants will have the opportunity to share their thoughts and questions on the research at the end of the webinar. Some Village Preservation members may recognize Jason as the storyteller and guide that brought members through the Whitney’s recent Edward Hopper’s New York exhibit. Village Preservation is excited to bring Jason back to discuss his research on Hopper and his findings as an art historian and scholar. Jason Vartikar (he/him/his) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. His research examines American art and literature, especially in relation to critical race theory, decolonizing methodologies, and the histories of science and Romanticism. His article, “Ruth Asawa’s Early Wire Sculpture and a Biology of Equality” appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of American Art, vol. 34, no. 1. This article argued that the artist’s biomorphic sculptures engage midcentury biological science and its expanding rhetoric against racial hierarchies. His writing has also examined objects as unconventional as a 3-by-3-inch rip of fabric—a Civil War battle flag fragment—which belonged to Leland Stanford Junior, and which, Vartikar argues, was the very first object in the collection that eventually inspired Stanford’s colossal museum, now the Cantor Center for the Arts. From 2011-2016 he was a founder and director of the Hansel and Gretel Picture Garden and Pocket Utopia, a critically acclaimed gallery and performance venue in New York City, which collaborated with many institutions, including Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and the MoMA.