Was Lassie on Edward Hopper’s mind in 1939, too?

Illustrations: The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller*, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938. Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939. *The illustrator’s signature is tough to read without the credit beneath the byline. (Scroll down to see and read the story pages or to print a PDF. It’s a great read!)

You may know the memorable and unbreakable bond of the boy and his dog which Lassie Come-Home describes, and the small and epic journeys.

The short story, Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller, was an instant must-read-and-share when it was first published in the popular magazine, The Saturday Evening Post on December 17, 1938.

Edward Hopper painted Cape Cod, Evening in 1939.

The short story is set in England and opens with a small family of three in recurring and searing pain: Two parents who have fallen on hard times and are under great emotional strain struggle to comfort their only child because they sold the family dog. Their beautiful collie, “Lassie”, is so devoted to their son, the dog runs away from the new owner straight back to the boy over and over again. Under the circumstances, any and every solution is untenable. His parents’ misplaced anger, adult exchanges, and silence confuse the boy. Their anguish and love is palpable.

Out of desperation, Lassie is removed to Scotland which they believe will be an insurmountable distance to cover.

It’s not. And no wonder a legend is born!

The first Lassie novel was published in 1940. Swift adaptations followed. It’s easy to see how the story resonated with American audiences during the Great Depression, even perhaps the great American artist, Edward Hopper.

If not Lassie herself, it’s tempting to consider the intergenerational communication and couple dynamics explored in Knight’s story as themes Hopper noticed, too.

“…Then they heard his opening of the door and the voice stopped and the cottage was silent. That’s how it was now, the boy thought. They stopped talking in front of you. And this, somehow, was too much for him to bear. He closed the door, ran out into the night, and onto the moor, that great flat expanse of land where all the people of that village walked in lonesomeness when life and its troubles seemed past bearing…”

Lassie Come-Home, Edward Knight, The Saturday Evening Post, 1938 Dec. 17

Both used punctuation in titles. Knight offset the story’s title with a vital hyphen, Lassie Come-Home (command-comfort) that might have caught Hopper’s attention. Hopper used commas often for emphasis–as in Cape Cod, Evening.

Beyond the Great Depression, 1938 may have appeared especially distant, simpler, on first pass. Yet, with international tensions rising year by year and the horrors of WWI just a generation past, neither 1938 nor 1939 were simple. Jan Struther, another UK author, broached topics of peacetime, lengthy stasis, and looming loss in the popular Mrs. Miniver pieces, published in The Times London newspaper (1937-39 ), at the same times as Lassie. Reader’s Digest distribution was international beginning in 1938.

In Cape Cod, Evening 1939, Hopper’s dog reacts, hears something, like a whippoorwill, or so the story goes. (Lloyd Goodrich’s Hopper bio, 1971; also Gail Levin, 1995) Levin’s book takes time to introduce the reader to Hoppers’ friends, and so we understand the grief from the loss of their friend Harriet Jenness who died “in early July of 1939. It was she who had firmed up the Hoppers’ courage to build in the first place and provided a roof till theirs was done.” (Levin, 1995.)

Cape Cod, Evening is constantly changing because it’s laden with enigmatic motifs. It’s late summer and fall. Unsettling and calm. Are the man and woman taking a momentary break together (as with the son and father walking in the Lassie story) or engaged in a forced desist (as with the parents going silent in the Lassie story)? Active fight or passive summer ennui? And what about that evergreen Hopper forest at the edge? Is it a cool and reachable retreat? Are the trees leaning, falling? Is the sea of dry grass sunlit and waving or scorched and still? And why no path? The man and woman are lost in thought. Worried? Families will have to have difficult conversations. Some won’t return. And what about the significance of that star dog with the striking fur?

Hopper was 35 at the onset of WWI, registered, but not called for duty. He was 57 in 1939.

1939

Edward Hopper paintings dated 1939: Bridle Path (Bruce Museum of Art, CT), Ground Swell ( NGA collection), Cape Cod, Evening (NGA collection), and New York Movie (MoMa). As a group, they make a strong case that Hopper was thinking about 1939 in 1939.

World War Two

Edward Hopper and Jo Hopper were on the Cape when war broke out.

On August 29, 1939, friends dropped by their summer home in Truro and Jo Hopper noted in her diary how the woman said, “…She’d been to England last week. Said they all prepared for war—everyone has his funkhole ready for an air raid.” On August 30 she added “E.” went to town on errands and picked up a magazine:

“Augu. 30. Still raining. After lunch E. went to P.O. & bought back kerosene, Readers Dig, postcard from Ginny at fair + the note from D R.—to see us Sept. 18 at 11. Onion soup & banana salad for lunch & tummy ache over dishes. E. so tired. Standing up at canvas. Canvas seems standing still. But I’ve seen that happen before…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Aug. 30, 1929 diary page. Provincetown Art Museum Collection, 2016. “Donation by Laurence C. and J. Anton Schiffenhaus in honor of their mother Mary Schiffenhaus (a close and personal friend of Josephine and Edward Hopper)”

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and England and France declared war on Germany just two days later.

On September 3, Jo mentions art and war :

“…E’s 2 canvases*. Sailboat without sky as yet. Tonight Bertha Frank & Edgar Cobb came up to say good bye for the season. Everyone else in Truro had their supper dishes washed—but we hadn’t begun yet. E. was still working when they arrived. He’s been plenty interrupted today. We didn’t swim—it looked so cold. Ginny said not cold but very dirty + water full of pink jelly fish.

So war is declared today & yesterday we saw that over into Poland. E. had a Times yesterday & we saw that. How Nat. news dwarfs everything. Why Pittsburgh festivities. Why anything. E. said he could drive an ambulance. I hope not. We most of everything need to get well…”

Josephine N. Hopper, Sept. 3, 1939. *Ground Swell and Cape Cod, Evening

star dogs

Examples of dogs in famous visual arts and letters abound before Lassie. During WWI, the soon to be famous german shepherd puppy Rin Tin Tin was rescued from the battlefield by Lee Duncan, and brought back to the United States. He was trained exceptionally well then on a hunch for the Silent Movie era. The original Rin Tin Tin’s first Hollywood movie was a bit part in 1922. He starred in so many box office hits, when he died in 1932 his death ‘stopped the presses’. Generations of Rin Tin Tin descendents followed, representing his public legacy if not his agility and acting chops. Other shepherds were used in later vehicles. For more about Rin Tin Tin’s global fame and impact and Duncan’s life–he did not trademark the name– see Susan Orleans biography, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. (Also her short piece The Dog Star, New Yorker, Aug. 2011 and a preview excerpt NY Times Oct. 2011.) I doubt Hopper would add a German Shepherd in a 1939 painting.

And before Rin Tin Tin? There would be no Dorothy without Toto. Frank Baum wrote the The Wizard of Oz in 1900. The production of the movie adaptation made news ahead of its release August 29th, 1939. (It failed to earn a profit until re-releases decades later.)

Jack London’s Buck in The Call of the Wild debuted in 1903.

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The Whitney Museum holds an early portrait drawing by Edward Hopper (1882-1967) of a contented dog–framed in a doghouse door naturally–dated 1893.

Edward Hopper Cape Cod, Evening 1939 was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 1982.

Beach Grass, architecture, Color, composition, And…

I think about Wyeth and Chase a lot when I look at Hopper’s Cape Cod, Evening. Same when I encounter any one of the three.

Wyeth

A decade after Cape Cod, Evening, American artist and fan of Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, completed Christina’s World, 1948 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

William Merritt Chase

Dry grass dunes and vegetation in the Hamptons on Long Island by American artist William Merritt Chase, art world famous in his day, and one of Hopper’s esteemed fine art professors. Photos: C. Ryan. Installation views from the William Merritt Chase exhibition at the MFA in 2017. Shinnecock Hills of Southampton seen in two works: Bayberry Bush 1895 (Parrish Art Museum) and Seaside Flowers (Crystal Bridges) The photo with the supercharged green is how it’s often depicted, but not how I experience this Chase series in person. (Chase painted a bevy of great dogs in other works.)

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post’s tag line “Founded 1728 by Benj. Franklin”

Select to enlarge pages and pinch or zoom. PDF below. Lassie Come-Home by Edward Knight with illustrations by Arthur D. Fuller. The Saturday Evening Post. December 17, 1938

The issue also featured a Norman Rockwell on the cover, a serialized Agatha Christie installment, an investigative long read about universal healthcare– illustrated with a Farm Security Administration (FSA) photograph by Arthur Rothstein in Arkansas, circa 1935–and several classic ads. New Yorkers Jo and Ed Hopper did not eat at home much, and when they did…beans were a big draw. The prominent full page color Heinz ad was on the inside cover of this issue. I do not know the illustrator of the Gulfpride Oil ad, but it’s great. For more information about the FSA and Arthur Rothstein with a timeline continue reading here ; for more about Roy Stryker & the origins of the FSA and Gordon Parks continue reading here; and for more about the FSA and Howard Liberman continue reading here.

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-by Catherine Ryan

cryanaid.com Edward Hopper All Around Gloucester

**First published 8/26/2023 on the occasion of National Dog Day. August 26 is International Dog Day. **