Nighthawks (Hopper): Difference between revisions

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{{Otheruses1Short description|the1942 painting by Edward Hopper}}

{{use American English|date=September 2024}}

{{Painting| image_file=Nighthawks.jpg

{{use mdy dates|date=September 2024}}

| title=Nighthawks

| artist=[[Edward Hopper]]

{{Infobox artwork/wikidata

| year=[[1942]]

|suppressfields=collection

| type=[[Oil painting|Oil on canvas]]

|medium=[[Oil painting|Oil on canvas]]

| height=84.1

|image_size=400px

| width=152.4

| height_inch=33.1

| width_inch = 60

| city=[[Chicago]]

| museum=[[Art Institute of Chicago]]

}}

'''''Nighthawks''''' ([[1942]]) is a painting by [[Edward Hopper]] that portrays people sitting in a downtown [[diner]] late at night. It is not only Hopper's most famous painting, but one of the most recognizable in American art. It is currently in the collection of the [[Art Institute of Chicago]].

'''''Nighthawks''''' is a 1942 oil on canvas painting by the American artist [[Edward Hopper]] that portrays four people in a downtown [[diner]] late at night as viewed through the diner's large glass window. The light coming from the diner illuminates a darkened and deserted urban streetscape.

"Nighthawk" may be Hopper's take on the term "Night Owl", used to describe someone who stays up especially late. The scene was inspired by a [[diner]] (since demolished) in [[Greenwich Village]], Hopper's home neighborhood in [[Manhattan]]. Hopper began painting it immediately after the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]]. After this event there was a large feeling of gloominess over the country, a feeling that is portrayed in the painting. The urban street is empty outside the diner, and inside none of the three patrons is apparently looking or talking to the other but instead is lost in their own thoughts. Two are a couple, while the third is a man sitting alone, with his back to the viewer. The couple's noses resemble beaks, perhaps a reference to the title. The diner's sole attendant, looking up from his work, appears to be peering out the window past the customers. His age is ambiguous.

The painting has been described as Hopper's best-known work<ref>Ian Chilvers and Harold Osborne (Eds.), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art'' [[Oxford University Press]], 1997 (second edition), p. 273, {{ISBN|0-19-860084-4}} "The central theme of his work is the loneliness of city life, generally expressed through one or two figures in a spare setting - his best-known work, Nighthawks, has an unusually large 'cast' with four."</ref> and is one of the most recognizable paintings in [[Visual art of the United States|American art]].<ref>[http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/hoppers-nighthawks.html Hopper's Nighthawks], [[Smarthistory]] video, accessed April 29, 2013.</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/edward-hopper-birthday_n_1692024.html | title=Happy Birthday, Edward Hopper! | publisher=TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. | work=The Huffington Post | date=July 22, 2012 | access-date=May 5, 2013 | author=Brooks, Katherine}}</ref> Classified as part of the [[American Realism]] movement, within months of its completion, it was sold to the [[Art Institute of Chicago]] for $3,000 ({{Inflation|US|3000|1942|fmt=eq|r=-1}}).

This portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout Hopper's work. If one looks closely, it becomes apparent that there is no way out of the bar area, as the three walls of the counter form a triangle which traps the attendant. It is also notable that the diner has no visible door leading to the outside, which illustrates the idea of confinement and entrapment. Hopper denied that he had intended to communicate this in ''Nighthawks'', but he admitted that "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." At the time of the painting, [[fluorescent lights]] had just been developed, perhaps contributing to why the diner is casting such an eerie glow upon the almost pitch black outside world. An advertisement for [[Phillie Blunt|Phillies]] cigars is featured on top of the diner.

==About the painting==

The movie director [[Wim Wenders]] has said about the painting that "I'm here to warn ya, you're about to see something dangerous". <ref>Boston Metro, May 8, 2007, p.18</ref>

It has been suggested that Hopper was inspired by a short story of [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s, either "[[The Killers (Hemingway short story)|The Killers]]" (1927), which Hopper greatly admired,<ref>[[Gail Levin (art historian)|Gail Levin]] in "[http://faculty.baruch.cuny.edu/glevin/Gail%20Levin%20Interviewednew.htm Interview with Gail Levin]"</ref> or the more philosophical "[[A Clean, Well-Lighted Place]]" (1933).<ref>Wagstaff 2004, p. 44</ref> In response to a query on loneliness and emptiness in the painting, Hopper said that he "didn't see it as particularly lonely". He said: "Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city."<ref name="kuh">{{cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/artistsvoicetalk00kuhk/page/134/| title=The Artist's Voice: Talks With Seventeen Artists| publisher=Harper & Row |date=1962 | access-date=2021-01-15 | author=Kuh, Katherine|page=134}}</ref>

===Josephine Hopper's notes on the painting===

==Nighthawks in popular culture==

Starting shortly after their marriage in 1924, Edward Hopper and his wife [[Josephine Hopper|Josephine]] (Jo) kept a journal in which he would use a pencil, make a sketch-drawing of each of his paintings, along with a detailed description of specific technical details. Jo Hopper would then add additional information about the theme of the painting.

{{main|Nighthawks in Popular Culture}}

''Nighthawks'' has inspired many homages and parodies in films and TV series.

A review of the page on which ''Nighthawks'' is entered shows (in Edward Hopper's handwriting) that the intended name of the work was actually ''Night Hawks'' and that the painting was completed on January 21, 1942.

== Notes ==

<references/>

Jo's handwritten notes about the painting give considerably more detail, including the possibility that the painting's title may have had its origins as a reference to the beak-shaped nose of the man at the counter or that the appearance of one of the "nighthawks" was tweaked to relate to the original meaning of the word:

== Bibliography ==

*Cook, Greg, [http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid39115.aspx "Visions of Isolation: Edward Hopper at the MFA"], [[The Phoenix (newspaper)|Boston Phoenix]], May 4, 2007, p.22, Arts and Entertainment.

*Healy, Pat, [http://metropoint.metro.lu/20070508_Boston.pdf "Look at all the lonely people: MFA's 'Hopper' celebrates solitude"], [[Metro International|Metro newspaper]], Tuesday, May 8, 2007, p.18.

*Spring, Justin, ''The Essential Edward Hopper'', Wonderland Press, 1998

{{blockquote|Night + brilliant interior of cheap restaurant. Bright items: cherry wood counter + tops of surrounding stools; light on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade green tiles {{frac|3|4}} across canvas—at base of glass of window curving at corner. Light walls, dull yellow {{sic|ocre}} door into kitchen right.

== External links ==

* [http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/amer/citi/object?id=111628&collcatid=2 ''Nighthawks''] at [[The Art Institute of Chicago]].

Very good looking blond boy in white (coat, cap) inside counter. Girl in red blouse, brown hair eating sandwich. Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding cigarette. Other figure dark sinister back—at left. Light side walk outside pale greenish. Darkish red brick houses opposite. Sign across top of restaurant, dark—Phillies 5¢ cigar. Picture of cigar. Outside of shop dark, green. Note: bit of bright ceiling inside shop against dark of outside street—at edge of stretch of top of window.<ref>Deborah Lyons, Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997, p. 63</ref>}}

In January 1942, Jo confirmed her preference for the name. In a letter to Edward's sister, Marion, she wrote, "Ed has just finished a very fine picture—a lunch counter at night with 3 figures. Night Hawks would be a fine name for it. E. posed for the two men in a mirror and I for the girl. He was about a month and half working on it."<ref>Jo Hopper, in a letter to Marion Hopper, January 22, 1942. Quoted in Gail Levin, ''Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography.'' New York: Rizzoli, 2007, p. 349.</ref>

==Ownership history==

{{stack|

[[File:Nighthawks invoice Ed Hopper 1942.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Invoice showing $1,971 ({{Inflation|US|1971|1942|fmt=eq|r=-1}}) going to the artist after commission and costs.]]

[[File:"Night Hawks" in the Art Institute of Chicago.jpg|thumb|''Nighthawks'' in the [[Art Institute of Chicago]] (2016).]]

}}

Upon completing the canvas in the late winter of 1941–42, Hopper placed it on display at Rehn's, the gallery at which his paintings were normally placed for sale. It remained there for about a month. On St. Patrick's Day, Edward and Jo Hopper attended the opening of an exhibit of the paintings of [[Henri Rousseau]] at New York's [[Museum of Modern Art]], which had been organized by [[Daniel Catton Rich]], the director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rich was in attendance, along with [[Alfred H. Barr, Jr.|Alfred Barr]], the Museum of Modern Art director. Barr spoke enthusiastically of ''[[Gas (painting)|Gas]]'', which Hopper had painted a year earlier, and "Jo told him he just had to go to Rehn's to see ''Nighthawks''. In the event, it was Rich who went, pronounced ''Nighthawks'' 'fine as a [[Winslow Homer|[Winslow] Homer]]', and soon arranged its purchase for Chicago."<ref>Gail Levin, ''Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography.'' New York: Rizzoli, 2007, pp. 351–352, citing Jo Hopper's diary entry for March 17, 1942.</ref> It was sold on May 13, 1942, for $3,000 ({{Inflation|US|3000|1942|fmt=eq|r=-1}}).<ref name=sale>The sale was recorded by Josephine Hopper as follows, in volume II, p. 95 of her and Edward's journal of his art: "May 13, '42: Chicago Art Institute - 3,000 + return of Compartment C in exchange as part payment. 1,000 - 1/3 = 2,000." See Deborah Lyons, ''Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work.'' New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997, p. 63.</ref>

==Location of the restaurant==

The scene was supposedly inspired by a diner (since demolished) in [[Greenwich Village]], Hopper's neighborhood in Manhattan. Hopper himself said the painting "was suggested by a restaurant on [[Greenwich Avenue]] where two streets meet". Additionally, he noted that "I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger."<ref name="kuh"/>

That reference led Hopper fans to engage in a search for the ___location of the original diner. The inspiration for the search was summed up in a 2010 blog of one of those searchers: "I am finding it extremely difficult to let go of the notion that the Nighthawks diner was a real diner, and not a total composite built of grocery stores, hamburger joints, and bakeries all cobbled together in the painter's imagination".<ref name="Moss 1">{{cite web |author=Jeremiah Moss |url=http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/06/finding-nighthawks-coda.html |title=Jeremiah's Vanishing New York: Finding Nighthawks, Coda |work=[[Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]] |date=June 10, 2010 |access-date=March 4, 2013}}</ref>

The spot often associated with the former ___location was a vacant lot known as [[Mulry Square]], at the intersection of Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue, and West 11th Street, about seven blocks west of Hopper's studio on Washington Square. However, according to an article by [[Jeremiah Moss]] in ''[[The New York Times]]'', that cannot be the ___location of the diner that inspired the painting because a [[filling station|gas station]] occupied that lot from the 1930s to the 1970s.<ref name="Moss 2">{{cite news |last=Moss |first=Jeremiah |title=Nighthawks State of Mind |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/opinion/05moss.html?_r=1&hp |work=The New York Times |date=July 5, 2010 |access-date=May 22, 2013}}</ref>

Moss located a land-use map in a 1950s municipal atlas showing that "Sometime between the late '30s and early '50s, a new diner appeared near Mulry Square". The diner was located immediately to the right of the gas station, "not in the empty northern lot, but on the southwest side, where Perry Street slants". That map is not reproduced in the ''Times'' article but is shown on Moss's blog.<ref name="Moss blog">{{cite web |last=Moss |first=Jeremiah |title=Finding Nighthawks, Part 3 |url=http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/06/finding-nighthawks-part-3.html |work=Jeremiah's Vanishing New York (blog) |date=June 9, 2010 |access-date=May 18, 2014}}</ref>

Moss decided that Hopper should be taken at his word: the painting was merely "suggested" by a real-life restaurant, he had "simplified the scene a great deal", and he "made the restaurant bigger". In short, there probably never was a single real-life scene identical to the one that Hopper had created, and if one did exist, there is no longer sufficient evidence to pin down the precise ___location. Moss concluded, "the ultimate truth remains bitterly out of reach".<ref name="Moss 1"/>

==In popular culture==

[[File:Roger Brown - Puerto Rican Wedding.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Roger Brown (artist)|Roger Brown]]'s ''Puerto Rican Wedding'' (1969). Brown said the café in the lower left corner of this painting "isn't set up like an imitation of ''Nighthawks'', but still refers to it very much."<ref>Levin, 111–112.</ref>]]

Because it is so widely recognized, the diner scene in ''Nighthawks'' has served as the model for many homages and parodies.

===Painting and sculpture===

Many artists have produced works that allude to or respond to ''Nighthawks''.

Hopper influenced the [[Photorealism|Photorealists]] of the late 1960s and early 70s, including [[Ralph Goings]], who evoked ''Nighthawks'' in several paintings of diners. [[Richard Estes]] painted a corner store in ''People's Flowers'' (1971), but in daylight, with the shop's large window reflecting the street and sky.<ref>{{Citation | last=Levin | first=Gail | contribution=Edward Hopper: His Legacy for Artists | year=1995 | editor-last=Lyons | editor-first=Deborah | editor2-last=Weinberg | editor2-first=Adam D. | title=Edward Hopper and the American Imagination | publisher=W. W. Norton | place=New York | isbn=0-393-31329-8 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/edwardhopperamer0000lyon/page/109 109–115] | url=https://archive.org/details/edwardhopperamer0000lyon/page/109 }}</ref>

More direct visual quotations began to appear in the 1970s. [[Gottfried Helnwein]]'s painting ''Boulevard of Broken Dreams'' (1984) replaces the three patrons with American pop culture icons [[Humphrey Bogart]], [[Marilyn Monroe]], and [[James Dean]], and the attendant with [[Elvis Presley]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.helnwein.com/news/update/artikel_3799.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090704114730/http://www.helnwein.com/news/update/artikel_3799.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 4, 2009 |title=Boulevard of Broken Dreams II |publisher=Helnwein.com |date=October 15, 2013 |access-date=August 18, 2014 }}</ref> According to Hopper scholar Gail Levin, Helnwein connected the bleak mood of ''Nighthawks'' with 1950s American cinema and with "the tragic fate of the decade's best-loved celebrities."<ref name="Levin, 109–110">Levin, 109–110.</ref> ''Nighthawks Revisited'', a 1980 parody by [[Red Grooms]], clutters the street scene with pedestrians, cats, and trash.<ref>Levin, 116–123.</ref> A 2005 [[Banksy]] parody shows a fat, shirtless [[soccer hooligan]] in [[Union Flag]] boxers standing inebriated outside the diner, apparently having just smashed the diner window with a nearby chair.<ref>{{Citation | last=Jury | first=Louise | title=Rats to the Arts Establishment | newspaper=The Independent | date=October 14, 2005 | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rats-to-the-arts-establishment-319534.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220621/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/rats-to-the-arts-establishment-319534.html |archive-date=June 21, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live}}</ref> A large mural recreation of ''Nighthawks'' was painted on a defunct Chinese restaurant in [[Santa Rosa, California]] until the building was demolished in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-01-16|title=Prominent Santa Rosa murals to be demolished|url=https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/prominent-santa-rosa-murals-to-be-demolished/|access-date=2020-07-09|website=Santa Rosa Press Democrat|language=en-US}}</ref>

===Literature===

Several writers have explored how the customers in ''Nighthawks'' came to be in a diner at night, or what will happen next. [[Wolf Wondratschek]]'s poem "Nighthawks: After Edward Hopper's Painting" imagines the man and woman sitting together in the diner as an estranged couple: "I bet she wrote him a letter/ Whatever it said, he's no longer the man / Who'd read her letters twice."<ref>Gemünden, 2–5, 15; quotation translated from the German by Gemünden.</ref> [[Joyce Carol Oates]] wrote interior monologues for the figures in the painting in her poem "Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, 1942".<ref>{{cite book |last= Updike |first= John |chapter= Hopper's Polluted Silence |title= Still Looking: Essays on American Art |url= https://archive.org/details/stilllookingessa00updi |url-access= registration |publisher= Knopf |place= New York |year= 2005 |isbn= 1-4000-4418-9 |page= [https://archive.org/details/stilllookingessa00updi/page/181 181]}}. The Oates poem appears in the anthology {{Citation | editor-last = Hirsch | editor-first = Edward | editor-link = Edward Hirsch | title = Transforming Vision: Writers on Art | place = Chicago, Illinois | publisher = Art Institute of Chicago | year = 1994 | isbn = 0-8212-2126-4 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/transformingvisi0000unse_k5y8 }}</ref> A special issue of ''[[Der Spiegel]]'' included five brief dramatizations that built five different plots around the painting; one, by screenwriter [[Christoph Schlingensief]], turned the scene into a chainsaw massacre. [[Michael Connelly]],<ref>{{cite news |last1=McManus |first1=Darragh |title=Anthology inspired by Hopper's untold tales |url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/anthology-inspired-by-hoppers-untold-tales-35260954.html |access-date=14 January 2023 |work=The Independent |date=4 December 2016}}</ref> [[Erik Jendresen]] and [[Stuart Dybek]] wrote short stories inspired by this painting.<ref>Gemünden, 5–6.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://christinajaniczek.com/review.html|title= Book Review: Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek|last1=Janiczek|first1=Christina|date=December 5, 2010|access-date=March 24, 2016}}</ref> John Koenig's ''The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows'' references Hopper's painting under the entry for "nighthawk".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koenig |first=John |title=The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2021 |isbn=9781501153648 |___location=New York |pages=47}}</ref>

===Film===

Hopper was an avid moviegoer and critics have noted the resemblance of his paintings to [[film still]]s. ''Nighthawks'' and works such as ''Night Shadows'' (1921) anticipate the look of [[film noir]], whose development Hopper may have influenced.<ref name="Gemunden">{{Cite book | last=Gemünden | first=Gerd | title=Framed Visions: Popular Culture, Americanization, and the Contemporary German and Austrian Imagination | publisher=University of Michigan Press | place=Ann Arbor | year=1998 | isbn=0-472-10947-2 | pages=9–12}}</ref><ref name="Doss">{{Citation|last=Doss |first=Erika |title=Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, and Film Noir |journal=Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=14–36 |year=1983 |url=http://www.colorado.edu/finearts/erikadoss/articles/postscriptessay.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091016091540/http://www.colorado.edu/finearts/erikadoss/articles/postscriptessay.pdf |archive-date=October 16, 2009 }}</ref>

Hopper was an acknowledged influence on the film musical ''[[Pennies from Heaven (1981 film)|Pennies from Heaven]]'' (1981), for which production designer Ken Adam recreated ''Nighthawks'' as a set.<ref>Doss, 36.</ref> Director [[Wim Wenders]] recreated ''Nighthawks'' as the set for a film-within-a-film in ''[[The End of Violence]]'' (1997).<ref name="Gemunden"/> Wenders suggested that Hopper's paintings appeal to filmmakers because "You can always tell where the camera is."<ref>{{Citation|last=Berman |first=Avis |title=Hopper |journal=Smithsonian |url=http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/july/hopper.php?page=4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711045932/http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/july/hopper.php?page=4 |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 11, 2007 |volume=38 |issue=4 |page=4 |year=2007 }}</ref> In ''[[Glengarry Glen Ross (film)|Glengarry Glen Ross]]'' (1992), two characters visit a café resembling the diner in a scene that illustrates their solitude and despair.<ref>{{Citation | last=Arouet | first=Carole | title=Glengarry Glen Ross ou l'autopsie de l'image modèle de l'économie américaine | journal=La Voix du Regard | issue=14 | year=2001 | url=http://www.voixduregard.org/14-Aurouet.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928150036/http://www.voixduregard.org/14-Aurouet.pdf | url-status=dead | archive-date=September 28, 2007 }}</ref> The painting was briefly used as a background for a scene in the animated film ''[[Heavy Traffic]]'' (1973) by director [[Ralph Bakshi]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://agentpalmer.com/2367/media/movies/rotospective-ralph-bakshis-heavy-traffic-is-high-on-detail-consistency-and-realism/|title=Rotospective: Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic is High on Detail, Consistency and Realism - Agent Palmer}}</ref>

''Nighthawks'' influenced the "future noir" look of ''[[Blade Runner]]''; director [[Ridley Scott]] said "I was constantly waving a reproduction of this painting under the noses of the production team to illustrate the look and mood I was after".<ref>{{Citation | author=Sammon, Paul M. | title=Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner | publisher=HarperPrism | ___location=New York | year=1996 | isbn=0-06-105314-7 | page=74}}</ref> In his review of the 1998 film ''[[Dark City (1998 film)|Dark City]]'', [[Roger Ebert]] noted the film had "store windows that owe something to Edward Hopper's ''Nighthawks''."<ref name="Dark City">{{cite web|url=http://www.ebertfest.com/two/dark_city_rev.htm|title=Dark City|work=ebertfest.com|access-date=July 16, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930110156/http://www.ebertfest.com/two/dark_city_rev.htm|archive-date=September 30, 2011|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref> ''[[Hard Candy (film)|Hard Candy]]'' (2005) acknowledged a similar debt by setting one scene at a "Nighthawks Diner" where a character purchases a T-shirt with ''Nighthawks'' printed on it.<ref>{{Citation|last=Chambers |first=Bill |contribution=Hard Candy (2006), The King (2006) |title=Film Freak Central |url=http://filmfreakcentral.net/dvdreviews/hardcandyking.htm |access-date=August 5, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926235810/http://filmfreakcentral.net/dvdreviews/hardcandyking.htm |archive-date=September 26, 2007 }}</ref> The painting features in the 2009 movie ''[[Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian]]'', it comes to life through CGI animation with the characters reacting to events in the outside world.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-05-28 |title=Deconstructing "Night at the Museum" |url=https://unframed.lacma.org/2009/05/28/a-curator-ventures-into-a-night-at-the-museum |access-date=2022-10-08 |website=Unframed |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Five Charming Inaccuracies in 'Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian' DVD |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2009/12/02/night-at-the-museum-battle-of-the-smithsonian-dvd_/ |access-date=2022-10-08 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

===Music===

* [[Tom Waits]]'s album ''[[Nighthawks at the Diner]]'' (1975) features a title, a cover, and lyrics inspired by ''Nighthawks''.<ref>Thiesen, 10; Reynolds, E25.</ref>

* The video for [[Voice of the Beehive]]'s song "Monsters and Angels", from ''[[Honey Lingers]]'', is set in a diner reminiscent of that in ''Nighthawks'', with the band-members portraying waitstaff and patrons. The band's site said they "went with Edward Hopper's classic painting, ''Nighthawks'', as a visual guide."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.voiceofthebeehive.com/biography2.html|title=Biography|website=Voice of the Beehive Online|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111011180702/http://www.voiceofthebeehive.com/biography2.html|archive-date=October 11, 2011|access-date=December 17, 2019}}</ref>

* [[Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark]]'s 2013 single "[[English Electric (album)|Night Café]]" was influenced by ''Nighthawks'' and mentions Hopper by name. Seven of his paintings are referenced in the lyrics.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/08/05/stream-omd-night-cafe-vile-electrodes-remix/|title= Premiere: OMD, 'Night Café' (Vile Electrodes 'B-Side the C-Side' Remix)|date= August 5, 2013|website= [[Slicing Up Eyeballs]]|access-date=September 25, 2013}}</ref>

* The first movement of American Composer [[David Maslanka]]'s multi-movement quartet for two pianos and two percussionists, ''This is the World,'' is entitled "Nighthawks" and takes its inspiration from Hopper's painting.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Jerusha |title=This is the world we know, the world of air and breathing and sun and beating hearts |url=https://davidmaslanka.com/works/this-is-the-world/ |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=David Maslanka |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Theatre and opera===

* [[Jonathan Miller]]'s 1982 production of [[Verdi]]'s opera ''[[Rigoletto]]'' for [[English National Opera]], set in 1950s New York, features one street setting with a bar inspired by the ''Nighthawks'' diner.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.musicalcriticism.com/opera/eno-rigoletto-0909.shtml | title=Verdi's Rigoletto at ENO | access-date=March 5, 2016}}</ref>

===Television===

[[File:Nighthawksreference.png|thumb|right|An [[establishing shot]] from "[[Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment]]" (1997), one of several references to ''Nighthawks'' in the animated TV series ''[[The Simpsons]]''<ref name="MEAWW" />]]

* The American series ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]'' placed its characters in a version of the painting.<ref>{{citation |last=Theisen |first=Gordon |title=Staying Up Much Too Late: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and the Dark Side of the American Psyche |publisher=Thomas Dunne Books |___location=New York |year=2006 |page=10 |isbn=0-312-33342-0 }}</ref>

* The show ''[[Fresh Off the Boat]]'' Season 2 poster features the title family in ''Nighthawks'' with actress [[Constance Wu]] using chopsticks.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://tvline.com/2015/09/11/fresh-off-the-boat-season-2-poster-edward-hopper-nighthawks/ |title=Fresh Off the Boat's Season 2 Poster: The Huangs Give Us an Art-Attack |last=Slezak |first=Michael |date=2015-09-11 |website=[[TVLine]] |access-date=2015-09-16}}</ref>

* The closing scene of [[Turner Classic Movies]] (TCM)'s “Open All Night” intro sequence, which was used to open overnight movie presentations from 1994 to 2021, is based on ''Nighthawks.''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dexigner.com/news/11177 |title=Exopolis Revives Vintage Edward Hopper Inspired Promo for Turner Classic Movies |date=2007-06-14 |website=Dexigner |access-date=2020-08-09}}</ref>

* The American series ''[[Shameless (American TV series)|Shameless]]'' features the ''Nighthawks'' painting in a late season 11 arc where [[List of Shameless (American TV series) characters#Frank Gallagher|Frank Gallagher]], a petty criminal and conman, pulls off his final heist, stealing the painting and hiding it in his basement, with a visiting repairman later thinking it was a high quality replica.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.avclub.com/shameless-end-of-life-storytelling-continues-to-disappo-1846571507 |title=Shameless' end-of-life storytelling continues to disappoint, not that we expected otherwise |last=McNutt |first=Myles |date=2021-03-28 |website=[[The A.V. Club]] |access-date=2021-04-21}}</ref>

* In a season 1 episode of ''[[That '70s Show]]'', Red and Kitty Forman, after a failed attempt to dine at an upscale restaurant, end up back at their usual diner. After Kitty comments that the scene seems familiar, the camera pulls back to reveal them as the couple seated at the counter in the painting.<ref name="MEAWW">{{Cite web |url=https://meaww.com/edward-hoppers-nighthawks-how-one-painting-came-to-heavily-influence-pop-culture-t-v-cinema-and-music |title=Nighthawks: How one painting came to heavily influence pop-culture, TV, cinema, and music |last=Pai |first=Akshay |date=2020-01-06 |website=MEAWW |access-date=2022-10-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite episode |title=Drive-In |episode-link=That '70s Show season 1#Episodes |series=That '70s Show |series-link=That '70s Show |network=[[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] |date=1998-11-15 |season=1 |number=8}}</ref>

*This work was featured on ''[[100 Great Paintings]]''.<ref name="b4x">100 Meisterwerke, Vol. 4, Chapter 10: Art Institute of Chicago</ref>

===Scale model===

[[Model railroad]]ers, most notably [[John Armstrong (model railroader)|John Armstrong]], have recreated the scene on their layouts.<ref>{{cite web|title=And Now for Something Completely Different|url=http://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/and-now-for-something-completely-different-1|website=O Gauge Railroading On-Line Forum|date=March 23, 2014 |access-date=September 18, 2015}}</ref> The theater lighting manufacturer Electronic Theatre Controls has a human-sized scale model of the diner in the lobby of their headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://blog.etcconnect.com/tag/nighthawks|title=et cetera... a blog of bright ideas from ETC|date=April 30, 2018|website=blog.etcconnect.com}}</ref>

===Parodies===

''Nighthawks'' has been widely referenced and parodied. Versions of it have appeared on posters, T-shirts and greeting cards as well as in comic books and advertisements.<ref>Levin, 125–126. {{Citation <!--news--> | last = Reynolds | first = Christopher | title = Lives of a Diner | newspaper = Los Angeles Times | pages = E25 | date = September 23, 2006 }}</ref> Typically, these parodies—like Helnwein's ''Boulevard of Broken Dreams'', which became a popular poster<ref name="Levin, 109–110"/>—retain the diner and highly recognizable diagonal composition, but replace the patrons and attendant with other characters: animals, [[Santa Claus]] and his reindeer, or the respective casts of ''[[The Adventures of Tintin]]'' or ''[[Peanuts]]''.<ref>Levin, 125–126; Thiesen, 10.</ref>

One parody of ''Nighthawks'' even inspired a parody of its own. Michael Bedard's painting ''Window Shopping'' (1989), part of his ''[[Sitting Ducks (lithograph)|Sitting Ducks]]'' series of posters, replaces the figures in the diner with ducks and shows a crocodile outside eying the ducks in anticipation. Poverino Peppino parodied this image in ''Boulevard of Broken Ducks'' (1993), in which a contented crocodile lies on the counter while four ducks stand outside in the rain.<ref>{{Citation | last1=Müller | first1 = Beate | title = Parody: Dimensions and Perspectives | publisher = Rodopi | year = 1997 | isbn=904200181X | chapter=Introduction}}</ref>

==See also==

* [[List of works by Edward Hopper]]

* ''[[100 Great Paintings]]'', 1980 BBC series

==Notes==

{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==

* Cook, Greg, [http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid39115.aspx "Visions of Isolation: Edward Hopper at the MFA"], [[The Phoenix (newspaper)|Boston Phoenix]], May 4, 2007, p.&nbsp;22, Arts and Entertainment.

* Spring, Justin, ''The Essential Edward Hopper'', Wonderland Press, 1998

==External links==

* ''[https://www.artic.edu/artworks/111628/nighthawks Nighthawks]'' at [[The Art Institute of Chicago]]

* [http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper/nighthwk.jpg.html ''Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces'' discussion of ''Nighthawks'' at The Artchive.]

* {{cite web

* [http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com/stmartins/search/SearchBookDisplay.asp?BookKey=1771826 "Staying Up Much Too Late: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and the Dark Side of the American Psyche"] by Gordon Theisen

|author=Jeremiah Moss

|date=June 7, 2010

|title=Finding Nighthawks

|url=http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/06/finding-nighthawks-part-1.html

|work=Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

}}

{{Edward Hopper}}

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