Image: Gallery 9, Los Altos, Long Beach
Gallery 9 is presenting an online-only selection of Curt Hoppe’s photographs from the Hamptons, framing them not as preparatory scraps but as artworks with their own art-historical interest. The gallery’s newsletter describes the images as the ‘working’ photographs Hoppe used for the sold-out series of photorealist paintings he made between 1997 and 2002, when he was translating scenes from the East End into large oil paintings.
The source material emphasizes that the photographs record Hoppe’s method. Along the edges of the prints, he applied small strokes or swatches of paint to confirm color choices while he worked toward the finished canvases. In one example, ‘Conversation at Sammy’s Beach’ (2000), the newsletter notes that the paint dabs were used to check the blues in the sky and water. The photographs therefore document a process of comparison and adjustment as much as they depict the Hamptons themselves.
Hoppe’s images feed a sense of nostalgia for the Hamptons at the turn of the century, but the newsletter also situates them within realist painting practice. It says the photographs offer a glimpse of the working methods of an established realist artist, and that the paint marks can change how the images are read. Rather than acting as intrusive notes, the marks draw attention to color and make the viewing experience more self-conscious.
The newsletter presents a selection of Hoppe’s best ‘working’ photographs and pairs them with images of the finished paintings as reproduced in exhibition catalogues from the Wallace Gallery, including ‘East End Paintings’ in 2000 and ‘Hampton’s This, Hampton’s That’ in 2002. It also points to reproductions that appeared on the cover of Dan’s Papers, which used Hoppe’s imagery on several occasions. One such example is ‘Sag Harbor’ (2000), shown on the magazine’s January 6, 2017 cover.
Among the motifs singled out in the newsletter is the Sag Harbor Cinema, described as a prominent East End landmark. The text notes that Hoppe painted the cinema at night and identifies a later Dan’s Papers cover using the image after the theater fire that gutted the building and destroyed its distinctive art deco façade. The newsletter says the community raised $20 million to restore the facade and original sign, and that the restoration was completed in 2021.
The selection also includes still-life images such as ‘Palm Reader,’ showing objects associated with the Palm Restaurant, the Huntting Inn and the broader resort culture of the region, and ‘Milk Picture,’ linked to the Barefoot Contessa in East Hampton. Another image, ‘Saturday Morning,’ refers to weekend lines at Dressen’s Excelsior Market, where people bought donuts, coffee and newspapers. In each case, the newsletter treats the photographs as source material for paintings that later circulated widely in catalogs, magazines and private collections.
Gallery 9’s mailing closes by directing readers to additional Curt Hoppe material, including a catalogue of his recent work, ‘Downtown Portraits’ (2010–2019), and to Gallery 98 Bowery, the sender named in the email. The Hamptons selection itself remains online only, with works offered for sale through the newsletter’s links.
