Fairfield Porter
Apple Blossoms III
1974

Name: Apple Blossoms III
Brand: Fairfield Porter
Price: 2500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Fairfield Porter, 'Apple Blossoms III', color lithograph, 1974, edition 50. Signed, numbered '17/50', and annotated 'III' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 20 3/8 x 25 1/4 inches (517 x 641 mm); sheet size 23 x 28 inches (584 x 711 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Collections: Muscarelle Museum of Art (William & Mary), Farnsworth Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST "The realist thinks he knows ahead of time what reality is, and the abstract artist what art is, but it is in its formality that realist art excels, and the best abstract art communicates an overwhelming sense of reality." —Fairfield Porter Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) was at the forefront of post-war representational painters who struggled for recognition during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Although a realist in subject matter, Porter not only admired and championed the abstract work of his friend Willem de Kooning but also gravitated to the inherent abstraction found in nature. He explored the subjective experience of landscape, figurative, and still life subjects in Southampton and Spruce Head Island, Maine. His flattened, unmodeled, soft-edged forms portrayed three-dimensional space with a gestural, lush brush stroke and patterned surface arrangement of shapes. Porter drew inspiration from his domestic life, once noting to a student: “I think…that a strong religious feeling requires a strong sense of matter-of-fact.” His artistic vision encompassed a fascination with nature and the ability to reveal extraordinariness in ordinary life. 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.'" Porter found himself slowly as an artist, and he was already in his early forties when he had his first exhibition in New York in 1952 at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery. From that point forward, the gallery's owner, John Bernard Myers, represented Porter and gave him annual exhibitions. His art was also included in six yearly group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1959 through 1968. Porter's most prolific period as an art critic was the 1950s. From 1951 to 1967, he wrote for Art News, reviewing roughly twelve gallery shows and museum exhibitions monthly. In addition, Porter also became a regular contributor to the leftist periodical The Nation. In 1959 he wrote an essay on the American realist and landscape artist Thomas Eakins for a series on American painters published by Thomas Hess. Porter continued to paint through his final years—producing many of his most famous landscapes in the last five years of his life. The first retrospective exhibition of his art was held from 1974 to 1975 and traveled to three venues: the Heckscher Museum on Long Island, the Queens Museum in Flushing, New York, and the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey. A full-scale retrospective of his art was organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Art in 1983. Porter’s work is held in numerous museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Parrish Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Creator:

Fairfield Porter (1907-1975, American)

Creation Year:

1974

Dimensions:

Height: 20.38 in (51.77 cm)Width: 25.25 in (64.14 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

Modern

Period:

1970-1979