Josephine Hopper

Previously relegated to a sidenote in the biography of her famous husband Edward, the art of JOSEPHINE NIVISON is finally receiving its due as KATIE MCCABE discovers

- KATIE MCCABE

Artist Josephine Nivison Hopper is synonymous with Cape Cod. Every summer from around 1930, she would travel from New York to that claw-shaped peninsula to spend her days by the sea with her husband, Edward. She could often be found painting on Fisher Beach, looking up at the undulating cliffscape, committing it to memory by way of a watercolour.

You can see that vantage point through her eyes in a study of the Hopper House, a quickfire painting by Jo that’s held at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. It is filled with energetic, non-descriptive brushstrokes, and squiggly licks of unnaturalistic colours: hot reds, sandy yellows and lime greens. The word “study” is key – it’s not a finished work, but rather an image born out of a creative impulse, a half-formed thought or first impression. As is so often the case with Jo, we don’t have the full picture. Despite her early artistic successes, by the end of the 20th century her work was nowhere to be seen.