Published on Dazed.

The 20th-century American artist – known for his scenes of derelict urban life and social alienation – is going viral

In her book The Lonely City, writer Olivia Laing recounted her brief stint living alone in New York. To her surprise, she found herself surrounded by more people than ever before, yet far more lonely.

She began to ask larger life questions; the frightening existential ones we try to not dwell on when scrolling mindlessly through social media or memes of cute cats. Like, what does it mean to be lonely?

The person who visualised the acute alienation she felt was the American realist painter Edward Hopper – despite the fact that he died over half a century ago and lived in an entirely different era of history...