Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)

Jimmy Schuyler

Details
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)
Jimmy Schuyler
stamped 'Fairfield Porter' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
31 ¼ x 43 ½ in. (79.4 x 110.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1958-60.
Provenance
The artist.
Estate of the above.
Mrs. Ann Porter, wife of the artist.
Gift to the present owner from the above, circa 1995.
Literature
B. Schwabsky, “Fairfield Porter,” Arts, November 1985, illustrated.
J. Ludman, "Checklist of the Paintings by Fairfield Porter," Fairfield Porter: An American Classic, New York, 1992, p. 290.
J. Ludman, Fairfield Porter: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolors, and Pastels, New York, 2001, p. 218, no. L242.
Exhibited
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fairfield Porter: Realist Painter in an Age of Abstraction, May 31-August 19, 1984.
Chicago, Illinois, The Arts Club Chicago, Fairfield Porter: Paintings and Works on Paper, November 12-December 31, 1984, no. 18, illustrated.
New York, Hirschl & Adler Modern, Fairfield Porter, 1907-1975, September 5-28, 1985, no. 11.
Chicago, Illinois, Compass Rose Modern and Contemporary Art, Fairfield Porter: Pictures and Words, March-April 1987.
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., Fairfield Porter, 1907-1975, September 25-October 31, 1992.
Boston, Massachusetts, Nielsen Gallery, Fairfield Porter: Selected Works, January 23-February 20, 1993.
Boston, Massachusetts, Alpha Gallery, Fairfield Porter: Paintings and Works on Paper, February 5-March 9, 1994.

Lot Essay

James Marcus Schuyler was an American poet, whose work The Morning of the Poem received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1980. Fairfield Porter painted several portraits of his good friend Schuyler and eventually invited the poet to move in with the Porter family in Southampton in 1961 where Schuyler would remain until 1973.

Barry Schwabsky writes of the present work, “His sitters’ muted personalities…seem enclosed in a kind of privileged privacy, an intimate stillness, which is also characteristic of his view of landscape. This is particularly well conveyed by a 1960 portrait of Jimmy Schuyler, in which the poet, sitting in an armchair in the midst of trees, seems almost to merge with the ambient.” (B. Schwabsky, “Fairfield Porter,” Arts, November 1985)

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