On Monday, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., announced that it would soon debut a new acquisition of a major work by American modernist painter Edward Hopper (1882–1967). Titled Blackwell’s Island, the massive oil painting, measuring 34-1/2 inches by 59-1/2 inches, sold in May 2013 at a Christie's sale to an unnamed private collector for $19.1 million.

Among Hopper's largest oils, the image depicts what is now Roosevelt Island, located off Manhattan in the East River. Painted in 1928, Blackwell’s Island features a wide expanse of blue sky above and turbulent cobalt blue water below, bisected by a shadowed, brooding skyline of buildings along the island’s waterfront.

“This is a most ambitious composition for Hopper,” explained Crystal Bridges President Don Bacigalupi. “He painted this work at the height of his powers and it exemplifies some of the best of Hopper’s style: a complex architectural composition with a full range of light and shadow, few people and the drama of the past colliding with the present in the form of historic architecture meeting modern.”

The painting has been exhibted widely, most recently at the first major retrospective of the artist’s work at the Grand Palais in Paris from October 2012 through February 2013.