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Nighthawks

Edward Hopper, 1942

Oil on canvas

84.1 × 152.4 cm, 33.1 × 60 inches

Art Institute of Chicago, 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.

The scene was inspired by a diner (since destroyed) 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 are apparently looking or talking to each other but are instead lost in their own thoughts. Two are a couple, while the third is a man sitting alone, with his back to the viewer. The diner's sole attendant, looking up from his work, appears to be peering out the window past the customers. 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 Phillies cigars is featured on top of the diner.

Nighthawks has inspired many homages and parodies.

• It was one of the works focused on during the Art Museum scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

• In the comic-book series Transmetropolitan, the top frame of issue #32, page 14, of the story "The Walk", features a futuristic recreation of this scene, with a robot attendant, video screens and a large amount of trash / debris. The main character, Spider Jerusalem, is seated in the position with his back to the window. Notable is that the word "Phillies" at the top has been replaced with the word "Hopper", an homage to the artist.

• The painting "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" — widely sold later as a poster — by Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein in which the three diner patrons are replaced by American pop culture icons Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, and the attendant by Elvis Presley. The illustrations were apparently taken from photographs. Bogart's pose is clearly from a publicity still from Casablanca. Regardless, the parody has oddities of its own: Bogart and Dean are grim and depressed-looking like the original customers, while Elvis and Marilyn are smiling; while Bogart not only lived much longer (though not incredibly long, at 57) than the other three (Dean died at 24, Marilyn at 36 and Elvis at 42), but was of the generation that preceded the other three.

• The 1981 film Pennies from Heaven, starring Steve Martin, has a brief shot of an exact recreation of the painting. Other scenes in the film are photographed in a style that mimics Hopper's painting style.

• The TV series That '70s Show recreated the painting in the first season episode Drive-In, with Red (with a hat and a black suit) and Kitty (in a red dress) at a diner called Phillies. (In the original painting, the "Phillies" sign is an advertisement for Phillies cigars, not the actual name of the diner).

• The twelfth episode of the first season of the television series Dead Like Me is titled Nighthawks. The painting is very much central to the concept of the episode.

• It has been said that director Ridley Scott used a photo of "Nighthawks" to illustrate to crewmembers the mood he wanted to create in the film Blade Runner.

• The diner in the film The Sting also resembles the Nighthawks diner.

• The diner (or one similar to it) also appeared in Superman comics, and was the location where Clark Kent and Mxyztplk determined the identity of Superman's foe, Ruin.

• Ben Edlund's comic book The Tick and the associated animated TV series use the Nighthawks diner as a recurring setting. In the first issue and first episode, respectively, the diner patrons from the painting are part of the action.

• Nighthawks has also appeared in several comic strips, including Pearls Before Swine, la cucaracha, and Cat and Girl.

• It has been recreated as a scene on a model railroad layout (as documented in John Armstrong's article, "Modeling a mood," in the January 1989 issue of Model Railroader magazine).

• There is also a Christmas card painting depicting a half-asleep Santa Claus and his team of equally tired reindeer drinking coffee in the "Nighthawk Cafe."

• There was a joke greeting card showing a group of wide-eyed ducks in the diner with a hungry alligator or crocodile waiting outside.

• Starbucks has created promotional material including take home mugs with the Nighthawks painting on them. The Phillies Cigars sign has been changed to make the diner a Starbucks.

• The Tom Waits album Nighthawks at the Diner features a cover photograph of Waits sitting in a diner.

• Nighthawks is one of the featured artworks in the board game called Masterpiece, all of whose pieces are from the Art Institute of Chicago.

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation features the diner in its picture giving clues about the final two episodes of its 2006 season. [1]

• In the comic book Batman: Year One, written by Frank Miller, there is a familiar diner in Gotham with a sign above it reading "Hopper."

• The music video for the song "Dancing in the Rain" shows singer Robi Draco Rosa finishing a cup of coffee and leaving the cafe. He "plays" the character with the back facing the viewer.

• In the movie "Hard Candy", the lead characters meet in the cafe called "Nighthawks". In the movie, the lead actor purchases a tee-shirt with the painting printed on it under the request of the lead actress.

• The British artist "Banksy" recreated the scene with a skinhead in Union Jack shorts having thrown a chair at the window and all the people in the cafe turning round to look at him.

• There is a similar café (named "Hoppers café") in the computer game Kingpin.

• A scene in the Marvel Comics miniseries Marvels, by writer Kurt Busiek and artist Alex Ross, includes few panels with the Human Torch in the diner from Nighthawks

• The VeggieTales "End of Silly Songs" video has Larry the Cucumber distraught and alone at a Nighthawks-styled cartoon diner, with white-hatted Jerry the Gourd in attendance as the counter help. The familiar Silly Songs in the show are played at a video juke-box that is drawn very much in the 40's style of the diner. Archibald the Asparagus arrives, and the girl he is with is dressed in the classic Nighthawks lady's red dress.

• Philippe Besson, L'arrière saison (Julliard: Paris, 2002)

• A 2006 TV commercial for the sleeping pill, Rozerem, includes several scenes of insomniacs at night. One is of patrons in a green-fronted, all-night diner, obviously inspired by the Hopper painting.

• The TV commercial for the 2007 version of Ford Fiesta in Brazil includes a scene that recreates Hopper's painting.

The reference to the painting from "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment".

• In the second season episode "Old Money", Abe Simpson (donning a fez hat) is sitting in the diner between the couple and the lone man in the picture.

• In the eighth season episode "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment", there is a fade in shot of Rex Banner with Eddie and Lou at a diner that closely resembles this famous painting.

• The television show Itchy and Scratchy featured an episode where the scene takes place in front of the diner.

• A poster was released which spoofs the painting. Chief Wiggum and Edna Krabappel are in the place of the couple, while Homer Simpson replaces the lone man with his back to the viewer (his buttocks sticking out of his trousers). The diner is named Yummy's Donuts.

• Nighthawks at The Art Institute of Chicago.
• Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces discussion of Nighthawks at The Artchive.
• High-rez zoomable image and analysis at Artchive
• "Staying Up Much Too Late: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and the Dark Side of the American Psyche" by Gordon Theisen