Gregory Crewdson is famously influenced by is Edward hopper.
"Hopper has been profoundly influential to me as an artist," writes Gregory Crewdson. "Emerging from a distinctly American tradition, Hopper’s work deals with ideas of beauty, sadness, alienation, and desire. I think it is now virtually impossible to read America visually without referring back to the archive of visual images created by artists who found inspiration in Hopper’s paintings. His art has shaped the essential themes and interests in the work of so many contemporary painters, writers, and, above all, photographers and filmmakers."
http://www.wcma.org/press/06/06_Hopper_Crewdson.shtml
Hopper was born in 1882 and died in 1967 and Crewdson was born in 1962. Despite so many years being between them they both deal with the same subject, the American Suburbs and the American way of life. Crewdson is so heavily influenced by the lighting Hopper uses and the sense that what is being shown is only a part of a whole story.
Shown above (bottom image)is a painting by Edward Hopper. It is called “Morning Sun” (1952). It is just filled with so much light, illuminating the wall and the thigh of the woman sitting on the bed, yet you wonder what has just happened. What is about to happen? This is just part of a whole story. What is she looking at? What is she thinking?
Crewdson has obviously taken these ideas on board in his photography. Shown above (top image) is an untitled staged photograph from the book Twilight by Crewdson. A woman is kneeling in her kitchen surrounded by a garden full of flowers.
The light is so important here as it floods into the room. Like with Hoppers figure the woman is sitting staring into a nothingness. You wonder what has just happened. The character has been captured just before or after the climax of the scene.
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