Edward Hopper As Illustrator Author:Gail Levin In January 1920, the first one-man exhibition of Edward Hopper's paintings was held at the Whitney Studio Club, founded in 1915 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Hopper was finding little support during these years and was earning his living through commercial art and illustrating. Mrs. Whitney's hellp came at a time when Ameri... more »can artists were receiving little recognition: her support for Hopper's work was carried on by the Whitney Museum of American Art from its founding in 1930 until the artist's death in 1967. When his wife, Jo, died a year later, she left to the Museum their entire artistic estate, the largest bequest of the work of an American artist ever made to a public institution.