The Whitney Museum is partnering with OutCycling, the Meatpacking Business Improvement District, and the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center to present its first-ever “Whitney Hopper” Bike Ride.
The museum will host a 60-mile, roundtrip bike ride on Saturday, July 22 along the scenic Hudson River to celebrate Edward Hopper, the Nyack-born realist painter best known for his Greenwich Village-inspired painting of a lonesome, late-night diner and depictions of vast American landscapes and liminal New York City scenes.
The ride is scheduled to take place on what would be Edward Hopper’s 141st birthday. Cyclists will commence outside of the Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District, close to where Hopper lived and worked for nearly six decades, and head north to Nyack to visit the Edward Hopper House & Study Center. Hopper-themed birthday activities, tours of the Hopper’s home, and a look at his 1897 bicycle will be offered to registered cyclists.
Kathleen Motes Bennewitz, the executive director of the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center, said that the inaugural Whitney Hopper Ride is a wonderful way to bring the museum and cycling communities together to celebrate the late artist.
“This ride will offer metro area cyclists a chance to discover connections between Hopper’s experiences in Nyack and New York City, and in between,” Bennewitz said. “In Hopper’s day, the streets of Nyack were filled with ‘wheelwomen’ and ‘wheelmen.’ In his youth, the aspiring artist also wound his way with friends through the village and beyond.”
Each registered cyclist will receive an exclusive “Whitney Hopper Ride” water bottle and two tickets to visit the Whitney Museum and the Edward Hopper House & Study Center. The Whitney Museum will always have several of Hopper’s works on display as part of its permanent collection on the museum’s seventh floor.
Kim Conaty, the curator of “Edward Hopper’s New York” exhibition at the Whitney, said the ride will offer a window into the artist’s unique and personal vision of the world. Conaty herself plans to join the ride to celebrate Hopper’s life and legacy.
“The iconic artist was an avid cyclist in his youth and an enthusiastic spectator of bike racing in New York City, always paying close attention to the scenes around him,” Conaty said. “It will be great fun to mark Edward Hopper’s birthday with a ride between the places he called home.”
Details at a Glance:
- Meet at 7 a.m. outside of the Whitney Museum on 99 Gansevoort St.
- Head north to Edward Hopper House & Study Center on 82 North Broadway in Nyack
- Register for the ride online at: https://www.outcycling.org/rides/669
