- Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter (
June 10 ,1907 -September 18 ,1975 ) was an American painter and art critic. [Art in its own terms Selected Criticism 1935-1975," by Fairfield Porter, Zoland Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979 ISBN 0-944072-31-3] He was the brother ofphotographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation CommissionerMichael W. Straus .Though educated at
Harvard , he was largely self-taught, and produced representational work 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, includingJohn Ashbery ,Frank O'Hara , andJames Schuyler . Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house onGreat Spruce Head Island, Maine .His painterly vision which encompassed a fascination with
nature and the ability to reveal extraordinariness in ordinary life was heavily indebted to the French paintersPierre Bonnard andEdouard Vuillard . He 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."References
* Marika Herskovic, [http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/oclc/50666793&tab=holdings "New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,"] (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6
External links
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collectionsonline/portfair/ Fairfield Porter Papers Online at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art]
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