Josephine Verstille Nivison

Wikipedia Biographical Summary:

"...Josephine Hopper (born Josephine Verstille Nivision; usually referred to as Jo Hopper or Josephine N. Hopper) (18 March 1883 – 6 March 1968) was an American painter. She is best known today as the wife of Edward Hopper, whom she married in 1924..."

"...She was born in Manhattan into a lower class family. Her parents were Eldorado Nivision, a music teacher and unsuccessful pianist, and Mary Ann McGrath. She was the second child, but the family's firstborn died in childhood sometime after 1883. Jo's younger brother Charles was born in 1884. .."

"...She first met her future husband Edward Hopper in art school, and then again in 1914 in Ogunquit where they were staying in the same boarding house. However, their friendship apparently only began some years later. Their relationship became much closer during the summer of 1923, when they were both living in an art colony on Gloucester. After a courtship that lasted for about a year, the couple was married on 9 July 1924They remained together until Edward Hopper's death in 1967. Jo modeled for the figures in most of her husband's paintings after 1924. Edward Hopper only produced one oil painting of his wife (Jo Painting (1936)), but frequently made watercolors, drawings and caricatures of her. Throughout her married life Jo kept extensive diaries (currently in a private collection) that recount her life with Edward and his creative process. These diaries also reveal that the marriage was very troubled: the couple had frequent rows that sometimes escalated into actual fighting.

SOURCE: "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"