Fairfield Porter

Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter, Under the Elms, 1971 - 1972
Born	(1907-06-10)June 10, 1907 Winnetka, Illinois, U.S.
Died	September 18, 1975(1975-09-18) (aged 68) Southampton, New York
Nationality	American
Field	Painting, art criticism
Training	Harvard University, Art Students' League
Movement	New York Figurative Expressionism

Fairfield Porter (June 10, 1907 – September 18, 1975) was an American painter and art critic. He was the fourth of five children of James Porter, an architect, and Ruth Furness Porter, a poet from a literary family. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus.

While a student at Harvard, Porter majored in fine arts, and continued his studies at the Art Students' League when he moved to New York City in 1928. His studies at the Art Students' League predisposed him to produce socially relevant art and, although the subjects would change, he continued to produce realist work for the rest of his career. He would be criticized and revered for continuing his representational style in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the New York School of writers, including John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on Great Spruce Head Island, Maine and the family home at 49 South Main Street, Southampton, New York.

His painterly vision, which encompassed a fascination with nature and the ability to reveal extraordinariness in ordinary life, was heavily indebted to the French painters Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. John Ashbery wrote of him: "Characteristically, [Porter] tended to prefer the late woolly Vuillards to the early ones everyone likes".

Porter said once, "When I paint, I think that what would satisfy me is to express what Bonnard said Renoir told him: make everything more beautiful."

Selected works

• House in the country, 1925
• View of a Moscow street from an open window, 1927
• The Roofs of Cambridge, 1927
• The Bridge, 1928
• Springtime meadow, 1930
• Johnny as a cowboy, 1943
• Rooftops, 1945-1950
• Floral Still Life, 1947
• Self-portrait in the studio, 1948
• Self portrait, 1948
• Woman in a Field, c.1948
• Still Life with Yellow Tablecloth, 1948
• The Bedroom, 1949
• Portrait of Larry Rivers, c.1951
• Portrait of Katherine Porter (the artist's daughter), 1952
• Katie and Jacob in the Yard, c.1953
• Main Street (The Bulls Head, Bridgehampton), 1953
• South Hampton Backyards, 1954
• House by the Woods, 1954
• Landscape, 1954
• Coastal scene, 1954
• Katie in an Armchair, 1954
• Armchair on Porch, 1955
• Still Life with Casserole, 1955
• View from 500 East Eleventh street, 1955
• Wild Flowers, 1955
• Maine interior, 1955-1960
• The living room, 1957
• Jimmy and John, 1957-58
• Maine Woods with Hawkweed, 1958
• Wareham, Route 6, 1959
• Molly and Walter Bareiss, 1959
• Red barn, 1959
• Wheat, 1960
• Play yard, 1960
• Tulips and milk bottle no. 1, 1960
• Snow landscape (South Main Street in winter), 1960-1961
• Roses in bloom, Maine, 1961
• Edge in the afternoon, 1961
• The trees, 1961
• Wild primrose, 1961
• Landscape with a small house, 1961
• Portrait of the artist's son, 1961
• The long field, 1961
• Wild Roses, 1961
• Queen Anne's lace, 1961
• Queen Anne's Lace - Evening, 1961
• Entering Southampton, 1961
• Wild Roses, 1961
• Still life, 1962
• Cottages near the shore, 1962
• The kitchen steps, 1962
• Car in Vermont, 1962
• The porch, 1962
• October Interior, 1963
• Stephen and Kathy, 1963
• Spruce and Birch, 1964
• Fairview, North Carolina, 1964
• July Interior, 1964
• White Lilacs , 1964
• The Plane Tree, 1964
• The Mirror 1966
• Rosa Rugosa, 1966
• Flowers by the Sea, 1966
• View Towards the Studio, 1967
• Maine — Toward the Harbor, 1967
• Woods, 1968
• View from Bear Island, 1968
• Self portrait in my Studio, 1968
• Forsythia and Pear in Bloom, 1968
• Still Life with Boats, 1968
• Amherst Campus No. 1, 1969
• The Door to the Woods, 1971
• The Christmas Tree, 1971
• Under the Elms, 1971
• Beach Flowers No. 2, 1972
• Late Afternoon Snow, 1972
• The Tennis Game, 1972
• The Beach in the Morning #2, 1972
• Flowering Pear, 1972
• Ocean State II, 1973
• The Harbor - Great Spruce Head 1974
• Anne in Doorway, 1974
• Apple Blossoms II, 1974
• The Trail, 1974
• Snow on South Maine Street, 1974
• Leon Porter, 1974
• Portrait of Richard Freeman, 1974
• Bear Island with Spruces, 1974
• Apple Blossoms III, 1974
• Isle au Haut, 1975
• Still Life, 1975
• Breakfast Still Life, 1975
• A Sudden Change of Wind, 1975
• Union Square, Looking up Park Avenue, 1975
• Couple with Pears and Chrysanthemums, 1975

External links

• Fairfield Porter Papers Online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Ken Moffatt, The Art of Fairfield Porter: An American Painter Celebrated a Sense of Place, 17 Feb 2010, Artes Magazine
• Alex Carnevale, In Which Fairfield Porter Looked So Young For His Age, January 13, 2011
• David Herd, Waiting for the mailboat (Letters of James Schuyler), The Guardian, 28 May 2005