Hopper Reproductions: Still in Copyright Until 2038

Why Hopper is reproduced so often

On 13 November 2018 Hopper's Chop Suey (1929) sold at Christie's New York for $91.9 million including fees, a record for the artist and for any pre-war American painting. Nighthawks, bought by the Art Institute of Chicago within months of being finished in 1942 for $3,000, is among the most reproduced images in American culture.

That reproduction is mostly parody, homage and licensed print — not hand-painted copies. Hopper occupies an awkward position in the reproduction trade: the demand is very large and the legal position is very clear, and the two are not compatible until 2038. This page covers the legal question first, because for Hopper it changes what you should do.

Copyright status

Hopper died on 15 May 1967. In the European Union, the United Kingdom, Brazil and every other life-plus-70 jurisdiction his work is protected until 1 January 2038. In the United States the term does not run from his death at all: for works first published between 1930 and 1977 it is 95 years from first publication, which means Hopper's paintings fall out of copyright one year at a time over the next three decades rather than all at once.

Two facts make this concrete rather than theoretical. First, when Josephine Nivison Hopper died in 1968 she left roughly 3,000 works to the Whitney Museum of American Art — the largest single gift in the museum's history — and the Whitney states that it holds the right to license all copyrights held by Edward and Josephine Hopper at the time of their deaths, other than those that have since entered the public domain. Some works in its collection are credited to the Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed through the Artists Rights Society. Second, the Art Institute of Chicago's own collection data records Nighthawks with the field `is_public_domain` set to false — checked on 2026-09-05. The museum that owns the picture does not treat it as free.

It is worth checking what sellers actually say. Reproduction Gallery lists 113 Edward Hopper paintings from $299 across four pages; the page carries a site-wide "All rights reserved" notice for its own content and no statement about the copyright status of the works it reproduces, and whether it holds a licence is not stated either way (checked 2026-09-05). That is the usual pattern across the trade, not an outlier. The general framework — what is and is not permitted — is set out in are oil painting reproductions legal.

For completeness: whether a painting counts as "published" in US copyright law is genuinely contested, and some Hopper works may already be free in the United States on that argument. That is a defence a seller might raise in litigation. It is not a basis on which a buyer should assume anything.

What a faithful copy must get right

If you are commissioning a licensed copy, or a painting in Hopper's manner of a subject that is not his, the technical demands are unusually specific — and, unusually, they are all visible in a photograph.

1. 1.One light source, one angle. Every shadow in a Hopper runs parallel because there is exactly one sun. A copyist who adjusts an individual shadow to make a form read better has broken the picture's only physical law.
2. 2.Flat, unmodulated planes. A lit wall is one value from edge to edge. Copyists blend across it because blending looks like skill, and the result is a Hopper with weather in it.
3. 3.Hard shadow edges. The boundary between light and shade is a line, not a fade. Three millimetres of softening moves the time of day by two hours.
4. 4.Three or four values, not forty. Most Hoppers resolve into a handful of value steps. Adding halftones is the single commonest failure and it makes the picture look like an illustration of a Hopper.
5. 5.Thin, matte paint. There is no impasto and no gloss. A copy with visible brush ridges or a shiny varnish is wrong before anyone looks at the drawing.

Hopper is, in purely technical terms, easier to copy than Van Gogh or Vermeer. He is harder to copy well, because everything that makes the picture work is a restraint, and restraint is what a fast studio removes first.

Most requested works

Difficulty is this site's rating, 1 to 5. The price column reads differently on this page from every other one: it is what a shape-matched canvas would cost, not a recommendation to buy an unlicensed copy.

Notice how many of them do not fit a canvas either. Hopper composed in wide horizontals — Nighthawks at 1.81:1, Early Sunday Morning at 1.71:1 — and the longest standard stretcher is 1.50:1, at 60 × 40 in. A Nighthawks delivered on a 40 × 30 in canvas has had roughly a quarter of its width removed, which usually means the empty street at the left, which is the subject.

Common mistakes in cheap copies

• No licence, and no mention of one. The first and largest problem, and the one a photograph will never show you.
• Cropped horizontals. Nighthawks squeezed onto a 1.33 canvas, losing the emptiness that the picture is about.
• Softened shadow edges. The single most visible technical failure. Hopper's light is hard.
• Modelled walls. Gradients painted into flat planes to make them look three-dimensional.
• Warmed-up colour. Hopper's greens and yellows are slightly sour. Copies made from web images push the saturation and the diner becomes cosy, which inverts the picture's meaning.
• Faces given expressions. The figures are deliberately unreadable. Copyists add a mood, and the loneliness disappears.

Sizes that work at home

Hopper's wide horizontals want a wide wall and a low hang. The compositions are built around empty space to the side of the subject, so cropping to a squarer canvas does more damage here than with almost any other painter in this guide.

1. 1.40 × 30 in (101.6 × 76.2 cm), $529.95. A 1.33:1 canvas. Fine for Chop Suey, Automat and House by the Railroad, all of which sit near 1.2.
2. 2.48 × 36 in (121.9 × 91.4 cm), $599.95. Also 1.33:1. Bigger, not wider — it does not solve the Nighthawks problem.
3. 3.60 × 40 in (152.4 × 101.6 cm), $769.95. The longest rung on the ladder at 1.50:1, and the closest stock size to Gas at 1.53:1 — about 2 % off the width, so a couple of centimetres come off the ends rather than a quarter of the picture. Still nowhere near Nighthawks.
4. 4.Custom, around 150 × 83 cm. The only honest way to hold Nighthawks at 1.81:1. Expect a bespoke quote rather than a list price.
5. 5.Custom, around 160 × 94 cm. For Early Sunday Morning at 1.71:1, which is 89.4 × 153 cm in the original — nearly life size at this scale.

Light a Hopper flat and cool. There is no relief to reveal and no glaze to warm; the picture already contains its own light, and adding a warm lamp works against it. The prices above are the standard unframed ladder — Art & See's published sizes run from $249.95 at 16 × 16 in through $599.95 at 48 × 36 in to $769.95 at 60 × 40 in and $1,299.95 at 72 × 48 in, and its custom-orders page states sizes from 8 × 10 in upward with custom dimensions on request.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. 1.Record $91.9m sale of Edward Hopper's Chop Suey at Christie's — The Art Newspaper. Accessed September 5, 2026.
2. 2.The Hoppers and the Whitney — the 1968 Josephine N. Hopper bequest and licensing rights — Whitney Museum of American Art. Accessed September 5, 2026.
3. 3.Nighthawks, 1942 — collection record; is_public_domain reported as false — Art Institute of Chicago collection API. Accessed September 5, 2026.
4. 4.Circular 15a: Duration of Copyright — 95 years from publication for 1930–1977 works — United States Copyright Office. Accessed September 5, 2026.
5. 5.Images and Permissions — ARS clearance requirement for works in the Whitney collection — Whitney Museum of American Art. Accessed September 5, 2026.
6. 6.Edward Hopper artist page — 113 titles listed from $299, with no statement on the copyright status of the works reproduced — Reproduction Gallery. Accessed September 5, 2026.