As Edward Hopper's wife and companion for more than 40 years, Jo influenced his work in numerous ways.
Perhaps most importantly, it was her example that inspired Edward to seriously take up watercolor, during the summer of 1923.

A number of Jo's works depict motifs that would later become important for her husband.
The watercolor Shacks, done in 1923, depicts two houses behind a dead tree, a subject similar to many of Hopper's later works.
Jo's watercolor Movie Theater—Gloucester (c. 1926–27) foreshadowed Edward's interest in depicting movie theaters: he produced a drypoint of the subject in 1928, and then returned to it occasionally, most famously in the oil painting New York Movie (1939).

Beginning in the mid-1920s Jo became her husband's only model.
It was she who thought up the names for a number of her husband's paintings, including one of his most famous oil paintings, Nighthawks.
Despite their complicated relationship, she helped when her husband felt insecure about a painting in progress, as in, for example, the case of Five A.M. (1937).
As late as 1936, Jo reported that her husband was highly competitive and that her starting a work would frequently inspire Edward to start his own.

In addition to her roles as Edward's muse and model, Jo served as the artists' record-keeper.
 In ledger books, now in the archives of the Whitney Museum of Art, Jo maintained inventories of the Hoppers' works, Edward's and her own.
She wrote the descriptions that accompanied Edward's pen-and-ink sketches of paintings that were turned over to the Rehn Galleries, and she recorded purchases by date, buyer, price, and commission.
Jo's sketchbook—including the notes, rough drawings, and scribbled maps that she made from the passenger seat as Edward drove their Buick—documents the couple's summer driving trips in New England.
Together with Jo's prolific output of diary entries and letters, these materials provide "A Window into the World of Edward and Josephine Hopper," to quote J. Anton Schiffenhaus.
As Edward Hopper's wife and companion for more than 40 years, Jo influenced his work in numerous ways. Perhaps most importantly, it was her example that inspired Edward to seriously take up watercolor, during the summer of 1923.
A number of Jo's works depict motifs that would later become important for her husband. The watercolor Shacks, done in 1923, depicts two houses behind a dead tree, a subject similar to many of Hopper's later works. Jo's watercolor Movie Theater—Gloucester (c. 1926–27) foreshadowed Edward's interest in depicting movie theaters: he produced a drypoint of the subject in 1928, and then returned to it occasionally, most famously in the oil painting New York Movie (1939).
Beginning in the mid-1920s Jo became her husband's only model. It was she who thought up the names for a number of her husband's paintings, including one of his most famous oil paintings, Nighthawks. Despite their complicated relationship, she helped when her husband felt insecure about a painting in progress, as in, for example, the case of Five A.M. (1937). As late as 1936, Jo reported that her husband was highly competitive and that her starting a work would frequently inspire Edward to start his own.
In addition to her roles as Edward's muse and model, Jo served as the artists' record-keeper.  In ledger books, now in the archives of the Whitney Museum of Art, Jo maintained inventories of the Hoppers' works, Edward's and her own. She wrote the descriptions that accompanied Edward's pen-and-ink sketches of paintings that were turned over to the Rehn Galleries, and she recorded purchases by date, buyer, price, and commission. Jo's sketchbook—including the notes, rough drawings, and scribbled maps that she made from the passenger seat as Edward drove their Buick—documents the couple's summer driving trips in New England. Together with Jo's prolific output of diary entries and letters, these materials provide "A Window into the World of Edward and Josephine Hopper," to quote J. Anton Schiffenhaus.
Josephine Hopper