Ever Wonder What's in the Next Room in Hopper's Rooms by the Sea?

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Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea, oil on canvas, 1951, Yale
University Art Gallery


One of Edward Hopper's best known paintings is Rooms by the Sea that was based on his studio in Truro, MA. Its mysterious doorway leading to the ocean captivates our eye. 

Did you ever wonder what the room through the painting's other doorway looked like? Last week a collector asked to see some of the drawings I made during my residencies in the historic studio so I photographed this drawing.




Philip Koch, Edward Hopper's Truro Bedroom: Afternoon 
Sunlight, vine charcoal, 9 x 12 inches, 2012.

To make the drawing I set up my French easel in the bedroom Hopper shared with his wife Jo for the three decades they lived in the studio. One of the room's two small closets centers the drawing. At the right is the doorway leading into Hopper's big painting room with his studio easel in the distance. 

What inspired me to make the drawing were the intense patterns the afternoon sunlight made over the closet door. Hopper designed the studio himself and made a point to have as many windows as possible to let in the bright Cape Cod light. 



Philip Koch, Truro Afternoon, oil on panel, 14 x 21 inches, 2017


Above is a more recent oil painting I made that takes you back into Hopper's painting room. Hopper took many liberties with the actual physical appearance of the studio to make his Rooms by the Sea. My version of the famous doorway has the door attached to the left side of the doorframe as it is in real life. But I borrowed Hopper's artist's license and like him cast direct sunlight on a studio wall that never really gets any direct sun.



Here's Hopper in front of his studio's 10 ft. tall north facing window that floods its painting room with bright and cool steady light.

Hopper built his studio in 1934 on the crest of a tall dune overlooking Cape Cod Bay, whose waters seem to come so close to the studio in his Rooms by the Sea. 



Philip Koch, Edward Hopper's Studio, Truro, oil on canvas, 
28 x 56 inches, 2020.


My version of the studio is a bit of a "history painting" as it shows the studio more as it looked in Hopper's day before the surrounding vegetation grew taller as it is today, partly obscuring the views of the giant rolling sand dunes in this part of the Cape.



 

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