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Note: Hopper was one of the premier Realist painters of the 1930s and 1940s. In 1900, Hopper studied portrait and still-life painting with William Merritt Chase, but he preferred to take classes with Kenneth Hayes Miller and Robert Henri. In 1906, Hopper worked as a part-time illustrator, but by autumn of that year he went to Paris to study the work of European artists. His painting from this period and soon after reflects the influence of "plein air" painting and Impressionism. Hopper continued to work as an illustrator, garnering more critical and commercial success with it than painting, although he loathed this work. By 1925, Hopper began to develop his signature, where the focus is on only one or two solitary figures often consumed by vast outdoors spaces or cramped city streets. His landscapes also evoke a similar haunting loneliness. One of Hopper's most well known works is a poignant portrayal of urban alienation, "The Night Hawks" (1942). With the emergence of Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s, Hopper's work was seen as illustrative and obsolete. Pop Art and Photorealism resurrected his reputation. American artist.