50 Fun Facts About Nighthawks

Which American artist painted Nighthawks?

It is usually classed with American Realism and is often called his best-known work.

In which year was Nighthawks completed?

Hopper finished it a few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

How many people are shown inside the diner in Nighthawks?

Three are customers and one is the counterman in his white coat and cap.

Which museum bought Nighthawks within months of its completion?

It hangs there alongside American Gothic and Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

How much did the Chicago museum pay for Nighthawks in 1942?

Director Daniel Catton Rich pronounced it as fine as a Winslow Homer before arranging the purchase.

Which cigar brand appears on the sign above the diner in Nighthawks?

Jo Hopper's notes record the price on the sign as five cents.

Who posed for the two men in Nighthawks, using a mirror?

His wife Jo posed for the woman in the red blouse, as she did for most of his figures after 1924.

Who wrote in a 1942 letter that Night Hawks 'would be a fine name' for the picture?

The couple's own record book shows the intended title as two words, Night Hawks.

According to Jo Hopper's notes, what may the title Nighthawks refer to?

Her notes describe him as the 'man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat'.

What colour is the blouse of the woman in Nighthawks?

Jo's notes also list a cherry-wood counter and a streak of jade-green tiles below the window.

Which Manhattan neighbourhood's diner did Hopper say suggested the scene?

Hopper said it was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet, and that he made it bigger.

Which vacant lot is most often associated with the supposed original Nighthawks diner?

Jeremiah Moss showed in The New York Times that a gas station stood there from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Which author's short stories have been suggested as an inspiration for Nighthawks?

Hopper said he probably was painting the loneliness of a large city, though he did not see it as particularly lonely.

Which Hopper painting did MoMA's Alfred Barr praise before Jo sent him to see Nighthawks?

Gas, a composite of several filling stations, ended up at MoMA anyway through a 1943 bequest.

At which New York gallery was Nighthawks first placed on display for sale?

Frank Rehn had given Hopper his first solo show in 1924.

Which 1984 painting recasts Nighthawks with Bogart, Monroe, James Dean and Elvis?

Red Grooms' 1980 Nighthawks Revisited instead clutters the street with pedestrians, cats and trash.

Which street artist's 2005 parody puts a drunk hooligan in Union Flag boxers outside?

A mural version of Nighthawks also covered a defunct Chinese restaurant in Santa Rosa until 2019.

Which director waved a reproduction of Nighthawks at his crew while making Blade Runner?

Critics say Hopper's night scenes anticipated the look of film noir.

Which 1981 film musical had production designer Ken Adam recreate Nighthawks as a set?

Wim Wenders also rebuilt it for a film-within-a-film in The End of Violence in 1997.

Which Tom Waits album takes its title from the painting?

It was recorded live in a studio in front of an invited audience.

Which director said of Hopper's paintings, 'You can always tell where the camera is'?

Sam Mendes drew on New York Movie for the lighting of Road to Perdition.

In which 2009 sequel does Nighthawks come to life through CGI?

Subtitled Battle of the Smithsonian, it has the diner characters react to events outside; in a That '70s Show episode, Red and Kitty Forman turn out to be the couple at the counter.

Which cable channel's 'Open All Night' intro (1994-2021) ended on a Nighthawks scene?

In Shameless, Frank Gallagher steals the painting and hides it in his basement.

Which 1989 poster replaced the Nighthawks figures with ducks watched by a crocodile?

It spawned its own parody, Boulevard of Broken Ducks, with a contented crocodile on the counter.

Which 2013 OMD single was influenced by Nighthawks and names Hopper?

Hopper's Early Sunday Morning had earlier inspired the sleeve of the band's album Crush.

Which Verdi opera did Jonathan Miller stage in 1950s New York with a Nighthawks-style bar?

Joyce Carol Oates and Wolf Wondratschek both wrote poems imagining the diner's customers.

In which town on the Hudson was the painter of Nighthawks born in 1882?

His childhood home there is now a museum and study centre.

Under which Ashcan School painter did Hopper study life class in New York?

William Merritt Chase taught him oil painting at the same school.

At which 1913 exhibition did Hopper sell his first painting, Sailing, for $250?

He was 31, and his career did not take off for another decade.

Which medium brought Hopper his first public recognition in the early 1920s?

His etching Night Shadows of 1921 already anticipated the noir mood of Nighthawks.

Which Hopper canvas of 1925 was the first oil painting MoMA ever acquired?

The mansion is said to have influenced the Bates house in Hitchcock's Psycho.

Which Hopper work, first titled Seventh Avenue Shops, is his second most recognisable?

A fire hydrant and a barber pole stand in for people in the empty street.

Which Hopper painting sold for about $92 million in 2018, a record for the artist?

It shows two women at a table in a restaurant, with another couple behind.

Where did the Hoppers spend their summers from 1930 on?

The couple otherwise lived for decades in a walk-up at 3 Washington Square North.

Which institution received Jo Hopper's bequest of more than 3,000 works?

She had been his only model since the mid-1920s and managed much of his career.

Which Iowa museum owns Hopper's 1927 painting Automat?

It was first shown on Valentine's Day 1927 at Hopper's second solo show at Rehn's.

How many sketches did Hopper make preparing New York Movie and its usherette?

Hopper was a lifelong devotee of the cinema and theatre and treated both as subjects.

In which year did the artist die in his Washington Square studio, aged 84?

Jo survived him by less than a year.

Which Hitchcock film's house was reportedly influenced by Hopper's 1925 mansion painting?

The 1925 painting shows a lone Victorian mansion above the tracks.

Which star made his American film debut in the 1981 thriller Nighthawks?

Hauer plays the terrorist Wulfgar; the film's original director was fired and Stallone re-edited it.

Which sound gives the common nighthawk its nickname of bull-bat?

Despite the name it is a nightjar, not a hawk, and eats insects on the wing.

Which 1611 book gives the first recorded use of the word nighthawk?

In America the name transferred to a related bird of the Chordeiles genus.

On what date does the Hoppers' journal record Nighthawks as completed?

The journal page, in Edward's handwriting, also shows the intended title was two words: Night Hawks.

Which museum director called Nighthawks 'fine as a Homer' and arranged its purchase?

Rich ran the Art Institute of Chicago and had organised the Henri Rousseau show where Jo Hopper buttonholed him.

Which New York Times writer argued a gas station ruled out the usual lot as the diner's site?

Moss found a 1950s land-use map showing a diner appeared nearby, but concluded the true location remains 'bitterly out of reach'.

In which sitcom do Red and Kitty Forman end up as the couple at the Nighthawks counter?

The season 1 gag follows a failed attempt at an upscale dinner, with Kitty remarking that the scene seems familiar.

In which series does Frank Gallagher steal Nighthawks and hide it in his basement?

The heist is part of the show's final eleventh season, and a visiting repairman later assumes it is a high-quality replica.

Which 1992 film has two characters visit a café resembling the Nighthawks diner?

The scene is used to underline the salesmen's solitude and despair in David Mamet's adaptation of his own play.

Whose 1980 parody Nighthawks Revisited clutters the street with pedestrians and cats?

Goings and Estes were Photorealists who evoked Hopper in diner and storefront paintings, but Grooms went for comic overload.

According to Jo Hopper's letter, roughly how long did Edward spend working on Nighthawks?

The same letter to Edward's sister Marion described it as 'a lunch counter at night with 3 figures'.