: "Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art, 1907-1975" is a major
retrospective of work by this compelling and influential Maine
artist, and the first exhibition to bring his visual and written
work together. Biographical in its focus, the exhibition features
Porter's paintings and works on paper and also draws extensively
on his personal correspondence, poetry, critical writings,
notebooks and published works. A large-scale photographic
reproduction of Porter's lost socialist mural is also included in
the exhibition. Many of the works in the exhibition were inspired
by Porter's summers spent at his family's home on Great Spruce
Head Island in Maine. "Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art,
1907-1975" is on view through September 7 at the Portland Museum
of Art in downtown Portland.
Porter was a fascinating and complex American painter who
produced Realist work in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist
movement. He was hailed by the poet and art critic John Asbery in
1983 as "perhaps the major American artist of this century."
Besides being an innovative painter, Porter was also a prolific
poet and art critic. His immersion in art history and theory
informed not only his criticism but also his paintings. His work
as a writer, critic, poet and painter is remarkably consistent
and is best considered as a single, complex, lifelong project in
which the artist perpetually sought to define for himself his own
relation to the world.
"Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art, 1907-1975" explores Porter's
wealthy upbringing; his education at Harvard; his youthful
travels in Europe and Stalinist Russia; his marriage to poet Anne
Channing; his involvement with Marxism and socialism during the
1930s and 1940s; and his work as a painter and critic from the
1930s until his death in 1975.
In his paintings Porter forged a distinctly American vision out
of two disparate styles: the first intimate, sensual and
representational and the second colorful, gestural and abstract.
Relying on the unexpected mystery of everyday personal
experience, Porter created a body of work that beautifully
portrays contemporary American family life.
Porter, perhaps more than any other American painter of the late
Twentieth Century, formulated vital images of family and home
that were both deeply personal and iconic. The exhibition's
curator, Justin Spring, who is the author of the seminal Porter
biography, Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art (published by
Yale University Press, 2000), has assembled the most revealing
images of Porter's home life, as well as portraits of family and
friends -- including individuals who have since become the
foremost literary, artistic and intellectual figures of their
generation.
Twenty-seven years after his death, Porter's intellectual
achievements remain highly regarded within the art world but
little known outside it. His extraordinarily intimate paintings,
however, continue to have a wide-ranging and immediate appeal to
viewers across the country. Ultimately, "Fairfield Porter: A Life
in Art, 1907-1975" is a colorful and inspiring celebration of an
artist whose achievements continue to exert their influences in
the art world.
"Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art, 1907-1975" was originated by
AXA Gallery, New York City, and is curated by Justin Spring. The
four-city exhibition tour is organized by Curatorial Assistance
Traveling Exhibitions (CATE), Los Angeles. The show has been to
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Wash. (October 5, 2002-January 5,
2003); Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Ala, (February
1, 2003--April 20, 2003); and after Portland it will travel to
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas (October 5-January 4, 2004).
The Portland Museum of Art is at Seven Congress Square. The
Museum is open 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Saturday and Sunday, and 10 am to 9 pm on Friday. Memorial Day
through Columbus Day, the museum is open on Mondays from 10 am to
5 pm. Museum admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and
students with ID, $2 for youth 6 to 17 and under 6 are free. The
museum is free on Friday evenings from 5 to 9 pm. For
information, 207-775-6148 or visit www.portlandmuseum.org.
