In Which We Keep Up The Pretense Of Lying About Our Age

Status Quo

by ALEX CARNEVALE

For the female of the species, it's a fatal thing for an artist to marry, her consciousness is too much disturbed. She can no longer live sufficiently within her self to produce. But it's hard to accept this.

Josephine Nivison, at the tender age of 30, occupied a one-room studio in the attic of an old house between the Plaza Hotel and the New York Athletic Club. She was still a virgin, and would remain one until long after her fortieth birthday.

self-portrait 1903

She drew as often as she could, publishing her sketches in the Evening Post and the New York Tribune. She loved to sketch artists at their work, patterning her portraits after her mentor at the New York School of Art, the painter Robert Henri. Her favorite subject was the dancer Isadora Duncan. Henri was quite taken with Josephine's repose, making her the subject of a large canvas:

Jo dabbled as an actress here and there. Getting paid for her work difficult in these fields, and the Depression would sour things further. Her teaching sustained her as she labored for various causes. She hoped one day soon to support the war effort. In the interim, she pitched in at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, of which she wrote, "Altho I have worked among them, I a not a Hebrew. The Hebrews are too clever a people to discriminate against Gentiles when their service can be of value to them."

With recommendations from orphanages and newspapers alike, she was accepted as an occupational therapist by Red Cross, and was sent overseas to Brittany. In a flash, Jo Nivision came down with bronchitis and was forced to return home after a month or two. Back in New York, she lost her job, her boyfriend made off with another woman, her mother died and she was homeless.

With the rest of her life stripped away, there was hardly any point in not being an artist. Such work could hardly sustain her entirely, so she returned to her former profession of teaching at a hospital for contagious diseases on the Lower East Side. She caught diptheria almost at once.

She began to lie about her age shortly after her illness, reducing it by seven years at her most brave. Because she was quite small and her beauty was unchanged, she found it not very difficult to pull off this deceit. She constructed her studio at 37 West 9th Street. No one showed up to her first open studio except her cat Arthur, and a single critic, Margaret Bruening.

with Edward Hopper

Arthur was her sole focus of attention; she could not really boast any other. She suggested to others that Arthur "knew traffic cops, the maitre d'hotel at the Brevoort, people at the Jefferson Market Court." Wasting away, continually ignored, quite sad in general, Josephine Nivison come across one unexpected stroke of good luck: because of the illness she contracted in a city school, she was granted a lifetime disability pension of $1750 per year.

The money was godly to her then. She could take time away from New York, absconding to Provincetown where the Gingerbread Inn was willing to allow her cat the run of the place. She was working mainly in watercolor now, and to her considerable delight, her efforts began to attract attention from art dealers and critics. One art colony she had not sampled was in Gloucester, MA.

It was there she met up with an old acquaintance, Edward Hopper. A towering rail of a painter, he dwarfed the tiny Nivison. Gail Levin, in her marvelous investigation of the painter, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, records that the man seduced her in French, using Verlaine. They painted boats and houses together. At this point in his career, he was only slightly more of a success than Jo, but she helped get his work into a show at the Brooklyn Museum.

That winter they went to the movies a lot. He wrote her little notes, promising to take her to Paris. (They never went.) When summer thawed the city, the couple wanted out. They were married on July 9th, 1924, and on the certificate Josephine kept up the pretense of lying about her age. In reality, she was forty-one years old.

The marriage had not been taken up in an idealistic fashion, and it would not proceed in one. Bumps in the pavement emerged quickly. His mother and sister disliked Jo quite intensely; Arthur could not quite get used to this spindly man being in his space. She kept her studio and the cat stayed there.

Hopper expected a wife to cook and clean, but Jo wasn't much in the kitchen; too focused on her painting to do anything else. He loathed her friends. 

There was the question of sex, now that she was a married woman. She wrote in her diary:

About the first week or so I realized always with amazement, but I knew so little about this basic concern, except to be appalled at prize hog proportions that the whole thing was entirely for him, his benefit. Upon realizing this - & with the world so new & all & I emerged in such vast ignorance - I declared that since that was the status quo of that - let him have it all. I withdrew all my interest - There was my body, let him take it - but I'd not consent to be hurt too much - only a certain amount - I'd not be the object of sheer sadism. I was forbidden to consult with other women over the mysteries. If he had drawn a lemon, I needn't advertise his misfortune.

In other ways, they were able to help one another. Jo took up her husband's correspondence; the impact on his career was immediately obvious. (He sort of ignored her work.) His modest watercolors began to sell, and his biggest supporter was Frank Rehn, who sold Hoppers out of his gallery like they were going out of style, which they were.

Edward and his wife planned a trip west. Shortly before their departure, Arthur vanished, never to be seen again.

caricaturing his desire for his wife to feed him

As Edward's career took off, their relationship began to crack further. The two quarrelled over Henri, Hopper's reclusiveness and their lack of intimacy. Josephine still lacked a studio, and although she admired her husband's efforts, it was pretty obvious to her and general hindsight that she was the superior artist. By now, his drawings were often a satirical commentary on how much he resented his wife.

She returned this view. "He can do all the chores, look after the stove, feed it oil, drag water, wash sheets even & string beans & think nothing of it. Go right back to work." The question of his that she loathed more than any other was, "How about a little something to eat?"

They moved to an apartment overlooking Washington Square Park. As before, they still shared a bathroom with another couple. They attempted to build a summer house together, but instead of bringing them closer together it separated the couple. Josephine complained of being "a kitchen slave," Hopper could barely paint in his new environs. As herself, she had attracted attention as a painter; as Edward Hopper's wife, his friends sneered at her work. Neither, when asked, could even think of a reason why they kept painting, other than that it was a means of survival.

Some time into their marriage, physical abuse entered the picture. At first it was purely as an accompaniment to Hopper's sadistic reviews of his wife's performance in the kitchen and bedroom. Once Edward held her down with his knee and bruised her thigh; she had to scratch and claw at him to get away.

Hopper at work

They fought often about the car; he consistently refused to let her drive. Josephine records Edward Hopper throwing his 55 year old wife out of a moving vehicle. Yet the verbal abuse was just as pernicious: "To exist at all, one must do battle. He sais insulting things about my mind, the impenetrable stupidy, the impossibility of me learning anything.... It would have been a terrible thing for him to have had a child."

Edward did offer Josephine something she must have craved. It is difficult to find the joy in their marriage, but if any was present, it could be characterized by the fact of always being there. Edward Hopper may have painted his wife as a crude caricature at times, vacillating between worship and horror at the intimacy they shared, but he did paint her.

He was, Jo told a friend, "very beautiful in death, like an El Greco."

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.

Hopper's painting of a nude Jo

In Which We Scratch And Claw At Edward Hopper To Get Away

The Female of the Species

by ALEX CARNEVALE

For the female of the species, it's a fatal thing for an artist to marry, her consciousness is too much disturbed. She can no longer live sufficiently within her self to produce. But it's hard to accept this.

Josephine Nivison, at the tender age of 30, occupied a one-room studio in the attic of an old house between the Plaza Hotel and the New York Athletic Club. She was still a virgin, and would remain one until long after her fortieth birthday.

self-portrait 1903

She drew as often as she could, publishing her sketches in the Evening Post and the New York Tribune. She loved to sketch artists at their work, patterning her portraits after her mentor at the New York School of Art, the painter Robert Henri. Her favorite subject was the dancer Isadora Duncan. Henri was quite taken with Josephine's repose, making her the subject of a large canvas:

Jo dabbled as an actress here and there. Getting paid for her work difficult in these fields, and the Depression would sour things further. Her teaching sustained her as she labored for various causes. She hoped one day soon to support the war effort. In the interim, she pitched in at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, of which she wrote, "Altho I have worked among them, I a not a Hebrew. The Hebrews are too clever a people to discriminate against Gentiles when their service can be of value to them."

With recommendations from orphanages and newspapers alike, she was accepted as an occupational therapist by Red Cross, and was sent overseas to Brittany. In a flash, Jo Nivision came down with bronchitis and was forced to return home after a month or two. Back in New York, she lost her job, her boyfriend made off with another woman, her mother died and she was homeless.

With the rest of her life stripped away, there was hardly any point in not being an artist. Such work could hardly sustain her entirely, so she returned to her former profession of teaching at a hospital for contagious diseases on the Lower East Side. She caught diptheria almost at once.

She began to lie about her age shortly after her illness, reducing it by seven years at her most brave. Because she was quite small and her beauty was unchanged, she found it not very difficult to pull off this deceit. She constructed her studio at 37 West 9th Street. No one showed up to her first open studio except her cat Arthur, and a single critic, Margaret Bruening.

with Edward Hopper

Arthur was her sole focus of attention; she could not really boast any other. She suggested to others that Arthur "knew traffic cops, the maitre d'hotel at the Brevoort, people at the Jefferson Market Court." Wasting away, continually ignored, quite sad in general, Josephine Nivison come across one unexpected stroke of good luck: because of the illness she contracted in a city school, she was granted a lifetime disability pension of $1750 per year.

The money was godly to her then. She could take time away from New York, absconding to Provincetown where the Gingerbread Inn was willing to allow her cat the run of the place. She was working mainly in watercolor now, and to her considerable delight, her efforts began to attract attention from art dealers and critics. One art colony she had not sampled was in Gloucester, MA.

It was there she met up with an old acquaintance, Edward Hopper. A towering rail of a painter, he dwarfed the tiny Nivison. Gail Levin, in her marvelous investigation of the painter, Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, records that the man seduced her in French, using Verlaine as if it were Neil Strauss' The Game. They painted boats and houses together. At this point in his career, he was only slighty more of a success than Jo, but she helped get his work into a show at the Brooklyn Museum.

That winter they went to the movies a lot. He wrote her little notes, promising to take her to Paris. (They never went.) When summer thawed the city, the couple wanted out. They were married on July 9th, 1924, and on the certificate Josephine kept up the pretense of lying about her age. In reality, she was forty-one years old.

The marriage had not been taken up in an idealistic fashion, and it would not proceed in one. Bumps in the pavement emerged quickly. His mother and sister disliked Jo quite intensely; Arthur could not quite get used to this spindly man being in his space. She kept her studio and the cat stayed there.

Hopper expected a wife to cook and clean, but Jo wasn't much in the kitchen; too focused on her painting to do anything else. He loathed her friends. 

There was the question of sex, now that she was a married woman. She wrote in her diary:

About the first week or so I realized always with amazement, but I knew so little about this basic concern, except to be appalled at prize hog proportions that the whole thing was entirely for him, his benefit. Upon realizing this - & with the world so new & all & I emerged in such vast ignorance - I declared that since that was the status quo of that - let him have it all. I withdrew all my interest - There was my body, let him take it - but I'd not consent to be hurt too much - only a certain amount - I'd not be the object of sheer sadism. I was forbidden to consult with other women over the mysteries. If he had drawn a lemon, I needn't advertise his misfortune.

In other ways, they were able to help one another. Jo took up her husband's correspondence; the impact on his career was immediately obvious. (He sort of ignored her work.) His modest watercolors began to sell, and his biggest supporter was Frank Rehn, who sold Hoppers out of his gallery like they were going out of style, which they were.

Edward and his wife planned a trip west. Shortly before their departure, Arthur vanished, never to be seen again.

caricaturing his desire for his wife to feed him

As Edward's career took off, their relationship began to crack further. The two quarrelled over Henri, Hopper's reclusiveness and their lack of intimacy. Josephine still lacked a studio, and although she admired her husband's efforts, it was pretty obvious to her and general hindsight that she was the superior artist. By now, his drawings were often a satirical commentary on how much he resented his wife.

She returned this view. "He can do all the chores, look after the stove, feed it oil, drag water, wash sheets even & string beans & think nothing of it. Go right back to work." The question of his that she loathed more than any other was, "How about a little something to eat?"

They moved to an apartment overlooking Washington Square Park. As before, they still shared a bathroom with another couple. They attempted to build a summer house together, but instead of bringing them closer together it separated the couple. Josephine complained of being "a kitchen slave," Hopper could barely paint in his new environs. As herself, she had attracted attention as a painter; as Edward Hopper's wife, his friends sneered at her work. Neither, when asked, could even think of a reason why they kept painting, other than that it was a means of survival.

Some time into their marriage, physical abuse entered the picture. At first it was purely as an accompaniment to Hopper's sadistic reviews of his wife's performance in the kitchen and bedroom. Once Edward held her down with his knee and bruised her thigh; she had to scratch and claw at him to get away.

Hopper at work

They fought often about the car; he consistently refused to let her drive. Josephine records Edward Hopper throwing his 55 year old wife out of a moving vehicle. Yet the verbal abuse was just as pernicious: "To exist at all, one must do battle. He sais insulting things about my mind, the impenetrable stupidy, the impossibility of me learning anything.... It would have been a terrible thing for him to have had a child."

Edward did offer Josephine something she must have craved. It is difficult to find the joy in their marriage, but if any was present, it could be characterized by the fact of always being there. Edward Hopper may have painted his wife as a crude caricature at times, vacillating between worship and horror at the intimacy they shared, but he did paint her.

Hopper's painting of a nude Jo

He was, Jo told a friend, "very beautiful in death, like an El Greco."

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He last wrote in these pages about the death of Simone Weil. He tumbls here.

"The Water Is Wide" - Noon (mp3)

"Love Me Or Leave Me" - Noon (mp3)

The new album from Kasumi Nakamura is entitled Full Moon and it was released on November 20th.

In Which We Dreamed of the Way I Was For You and You Were For Me

Edward Hopper's 'Early Sunday Morning'What Could As Easily Not Exist

by WILL HUBBARD

I've been listening to Astral Weeks once every night. I like thinking about how the instrumentation was recorded after the vocals were laid down. I've gotten back into this album so many times that it no longer takes me back to the first time I heard it. For the record, though, that was on a dorm-room floor in the days when ecstasy had hold of us and I secretly believed I'd be a great painter one day.

In a gated-off patch of grass and brush along the waterfront near my house, a man has been living for some time off of the land. There is a hole in the gate that fastens shut with a padlock, a trail leading back to his tarpaulin, cardboard, and scrapmetal dwelling. Apparently he has a tape-player of some sort, because every time I pass along the gate "Madame George" is pressing out faintly through the ironweed. He might have gotten the single at a gas station music kiosk.

Last night, I had two thoughts about Astral Weeks, one leading from the other, that bore the mark of indelibilty. Still this morning, a Sunday, both thoughts would repeat, easily delineable. Now, hours later, the task of constructing an IKEA bedside table dividing me from them, I can get to but where the ideas were. A path, a channel. A locus of memory now deteriorated. I have the form of them but they are irrecoverable. I stand at the grave but it is empty.

I do however remember that a big print of Edward Hopper's Early Sunday Morning hung in parent's room when I was a child. We moved a bunch of times, but in every new house the faintly menacing, entirely tranquil scene would appear over my father's bureau. I suppose one day I will have a bureau, and important things to put into (and above) a bureau. I fear that I already have a bureau, and that I am typing into it right now.

There is a another man living down the street who is always on his stoop when I pass. Once a month he gets out his tools and constructs, with great precision, another steel bookshelf or storage rack. The sale of them apparently pays the rent. He has two children and a wife, all of whom are constantly around him, never at work or in school. They are the most cheerful and open children I have ever seen. She is a solemn but evidently content wife.

The more you think about it, the creepier it becomes ever time Van Morrison says chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild on Astral Weeks. Sure, the nymphet theme can be beautiful in literature and music, but does he have to keep saying chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild like that, all raspy and suggestive? At the same time, I guess I'd probably talk like that if I smoked. (Instead I'm breaking apart the last remains of a nicotine lozenge with the tip of my tongue and a molar.)

I was once told that those happy people down the street were Spanish—they speak Spanish to one another, good English to everyone else. The front door to their basement apartment is always wide open, children or dogs calmly coming and going, carelessly. Tonight they were grilling sausages out on the sidewalk, smiling at me as if in invitation to join their twilight celebration. I smiled back, as I always do, as if to say ‘thank you, but it is not in me.’ Their essence is constancy, the embodiment of the adverb always. 'To be born again, in another world, darling' is another thing I could have said to them but did not.

Come to think of it, I don't have much to say about Early Sunday Morning either; not that it's a boring painting, it's just that it doesn't bother drawing attention to any particular aspect of itself. Something electrifies the paint the moment before you look, and when you see the painting it bears what Frank O'Hara once termed "post exertion visibility." Funny how you can have no idea what a line of poetry means until you apply it to an otherwise indescribable phenomenon.

The love that loves the love that loves the love that loves the love that loves to love the love that loves to love the love that loves. Almost like a Kanye West lyric, except with more grammar.

Edward Hopper's father was a dry goods merchant. (What is a dry good?) Despite early potential, he did not sell his first painting until he was 31 years old. It is reported that the decade leading up to this sale Hopper spent long periods sitting despondently in front of his easel, unable to think of anything to paint, let alone paint. Van Morrison had no such trouble, already touring Europe with his band The Monarchs at the age of seventeen. His father raised masts at a shipyard.

Have you ever noticed that when something rises vertically above eye-level it seems to overhang? For example, standing on the ground between two large buildings, they enclose one's upward view as they rise, seeming to hang over the street in an incomplete pyramid. Toward the locus of our vision all things tend. It is the same with the mind—the superior idea immediately, as though by some magnetism, tends toward what already exists in our frame of reference. The phenomenon is more dangerous in the case of the mind, for while the building will surely not fall, new ideas have a tendency to implode in the presence of our pretensions to knowledge.

There is a black square in the top right corner of Hopper's painting that breaks its general symmetry. I experienced considerable stress as a child wanting to erase that black box. Why was it there? Was it a mistake? An error? Now I chalk it up to the shadow of a tall building meant to signal the imminent inexistence of the small town 'early sunday morning' peace. Yet it is not this also, this anti-focal point. Like the pause in Van Morrison's phrasing between "fourteen...... year old," the black box is something we can, depending on our present condition, ignore, worry about, or savor.

Early this morning, a Monday, I was running down a dark street lined with crumbling relics if the East River's industrial era. A man sleeping in a corner pulled back the heavy felt covers from his face just as I passed and yelled, all raspy and suggestive, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" He was right. I had no answer.

Will Hubbard is the executive editor of this publication. His tumblr of the week is here.

E'rybody loves that Wavves meltdown.

 "So Bored" - Wavves (mp3)

"No Hope Kids" - Wavves (mp3)

"Sun Opens My Eyes" - Wavves (mp3)

"Goth Girls" - Wavves (mp3)