Gas shows a lone attendant at a country filling station at dusk, three pumps glowing against a wall of dark trees, and a road with no car on it. Edward Hopper painted it in 1940. It is usually read as a picture of loneliness, a place that exists for people passing through, with no one passing.
The man wears a vest and a tie. He stands with one hand on the pump nearest him, and behind him the road curves out of sight. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, known as MoMA, bought the canvas in 1943 and still shows it.
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The loneliness is easy to feel. The station is harder to find, because it never stood anywhere. MoMA's wall label says Hopper painted the scene from "a composite representation of several gasoline stations seen by the artist." No road leads to this place, on Cape Cod or anywhere else, and no one can go and stand at its pumps.
Hopper had wanted to paint a gas station for a long time, according to his wife, Jo. He had seen several, and he took what he needed from each and joined the pieces on the canvas.
Even the glow on the pumps is not something he could have copied from the roadside.
What You'll Discover
What Hopper could not find.
Where that light comes from.
What hangs on the middle pump.
Who this man at the pump is.
Why no car ever arrives.