Edward Hopper American, 1882-1967 Drug Store, 1927 Oil on canvas A glowing pharmacy window beckons us from a dark and recenly deserted street. Advertising “Ex-Lax,” the painted sign offers the tongue-in-cheek promise of relief, lightening an othenwise mysterious setting. While many carly 20th-century American painters imagined the city as a noisy, social space, Hopper was drawn to scenes of loneliness and isolation. Drug Store was the subject of a small controversy. Margaret Selby, who was married to Hopper’s dealec Frank Rehn, objected to the artist’s allusion to a laxative and persuaded Hopper to change the second X to a C: “Ex. Lac.” John T. Spaulding, the Boston collector who acquired the work (and eventually donated it to the MFA), had no patience for such squeamishness and asked Hopper to restore the product’s proper name, evident here. Request of fain I Spading 1918 44561