Oreton Clark House, Amherst College, 1970
by Fairfield Porter (1907–1975)18 x 14 inches
Signed and dated lower left: Fairfield Porter 70
Provenance
The artist
Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Hertzfeld, gift from above, 1970
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts, gift from above, 1981–1984
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York, New York
Exxon Corporation
Sale, Heritage, Dallas, Texas, November 17, 2023, lot 67055
Exhibited
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts, Memories of Fairfield Porter, April 7–May 7, 1981
Literature
Memories of Fairfield Porter (Amherst, MA: Mead Art Museum, 1981), no. 4.
John T. Spike, Fairfield Porter: An American Classic (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992), 227, 300.
Joan Ludman, Fairfield Porter: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2001), 262, no. L729.
Related Works
Amherst Campus No. 1, 1969, oil on canvas, 62¼ 46¼ inches; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York
Pelham Hills, 1970, oil on canvas, 26 x 28 inches; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York
Note: Fairfield Porter taught at Amherst College from 1969–1970, and he made a number of paintings depicting the campus throughout this period.
Artist Biography
By Nina Sangimino
The deepest order is not within the ability of the artist to create, instead it is something that he is able to find, whether within or outside himself, and only if he is open enough, unprejudiced enough and attentive enough.[1]
—Fairfield Porter
I. Biography
II. Chronology
III. Collections
IV. Exhibitions
V. Memberships
VI. Notes
VII. Suggested Resources
I. Biography
Fairfield Porter has been called both “the most important realist painter from 1949 until his death in 1975”[2] and “one of the most lucid and intelligent art critics and writers of the post 1945 period.”[3] He continued to paint representationally throughout the height of Abstract Expressionism, yet