Apollo Advent Calendar: Day 22

Apollo is counting down to Christmas by celebrating some of the greatest acquisitions, gifts and bequests of 2013. We’ll take a closer look each day at one of the outstanding objects, works of art or collections shortlisted for the Apollo Awards Acquisition of the Year.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville
Blackwell’s Island, 1928
Edward Hopper (1882–1967)
Oil on canvas, 87.6×151.3cm
Acquired with museum funds

Acquired at auction at Christie’s in May, this unusually large painting by Hopper, previously in a private collection, joins a group of the artist’s works on paper already in the museum. It depicts a notorious asylum on what is now known as Roosevelt Island (a finger of land off Manhattan in New York’s East River), and betrays the artist’s interest in remote and impersonal architectural subjects. A moonlit view of the island from 1911 is in the Whitney Museum. This painting complements the museum’s strong holdings of American art from the 1930s, and has been placed on display alongside works by Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler and George Bellows.