Edward and Jo Hopper first discovered Vermont in 1927, making day trips from the Whitney Studio Club's summer retreat for New York artists in Charlestown, New Hampshire. In 1935 and 1936 the Hoppers again traveled to Vermont, this time from their summer home in Cape Cod, in Edward's continuing search for new places to paint.
During these quests they identified the White River and what Edward considered to be Vermont's "finest" river valley, and they returned there for longer visits in 1937 and 1938, boarding at Robert and Irene Slater's Wagon Wheels farm in South Royalton.
Over the course of his Vermont sojourns, Edward Hopper produced some two-dozen paintings, watercolors that are among the most distinctive of his regional works, strongly characterized by place. In her new book, Edward Hopper in Vermont , Bonnie Clause tells the story of the Hoppers' visits to Vermont, their stays on the Slater farm, and their introduction to farm life.
