July, Fairfield Porter

Artwork Overview

Fairfield Porter, July
Fairfield Porter, July
Fairfield Porter
July
1971
Fairfield Porter, artist
1907–1975
July, 1971
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: oil; canvas
Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 257.8 x 207 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 101 1/2 x 81 1/2 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 101 3/4 x 81 1/2 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation
Accession number: 1980.0129
Not on display
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Label texts

Keep Calm and Breathe

Enjoy the leisurely summer setting of Fairfield Porter’s July. Set at the artist’s vacation home on Great Spruce Island, Maine, this delightful scene shows four members of the artist’s family luxuriating in an afternoon at rest. The painting’s large size and the empty chair seems to beckon us to join in the fun.

Click below to listen to an Art Minute episode about this work.

20/21

Summer gatherings are marked by distinctive flavors, sights, sounds, and smells. We lug our lawn chairs and sunscreen all over town, listen to the whir of lawnmowers, and associate the aroma of bug spray and fireworks with the Fourth of July. Such events often include eating, and we delight in plastic dinnerware, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, and the prospect of ordering food on a stick or funnel cake from carnival vendors. A summer party can be refined or raucous, from wedding receptions to outdoor concerts. Fairfield Porter’s July presents the quiet interactions of a few friends enjoying an afternoon in the backyard. In Weegee’s photograph of Coney Island hardly a spot of sand can even be seen as beachcomers crowd the landscape. As summer typically finds our schedules more open, our social calendars fill with family reunions, picnics, and trips to the beach or the fair.

20/21

Summer gatherings are marked by distinctive flavors, sights, sounds, and smells. We lug our lawn chairs and sunscreen all over town, listen to the whir of lawnmowers, and associate the aroma of bug spray and fireworks with the Fourth of July. Such events often include eating, and we delight in plastic dinnerware, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, and the prospect of ordering food on a stick or funnel cake from carnival vendors. A summer party can be refined or raucous, from wedding receptions to outdoor concerts. Fairfield Porter’s July presents the quiet interactions of a few friends enjoying an afternoon in the backyard. In Weegee’s photograph of Coney Island hardly a spot of sand can even be seen as beachcomers crowd the landscape. As summer typically finds our schedules more open, our social calendars fill with family reunions, picnics, and trips to the beach or the fair.

20/21

Summer gatherings are marked by distinctive flavors, sights, sounds, and smells. We lug our lawn chairs and sunscreen all over town, listen to the whir of lawnmowers, and associate the aroma of bug spray and fireworks with the Fourth of July. Such events often include eating, and we delight in plastic dinnerware, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, and the prospect of ordering food on a stick or funnel cake from carnival vendors. A summer party can be refined or raucous, from wedding receptions to outdoor concerts. Fairfield Porter’s July presents the quiet interactions of a few friends enjoying an afternoon in the backyard. In Weegee’s photograph of Coney Island hardly a spot of sand can even be seen as beachcomers crowd the landscape. As summer typically finds our schedules more open, our social calendars fill with family reunions, picnics, and trips to the beach or the fair.

Exhibition Label:
"Summer in the Central Court," Jun-2006, Kate Meyer
Summer gatherings are marked by distinctive flavors, sights, sounds, and smells. We lug our lawn chairs and sunscreen all over town, listen to the whir of lawnmowers, and associate the aroma of bug spray and fireworks with the Fourth of July. Such events often include eating, and we delight in plastic dinnerware, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, and the prospect of ordering food on a stick or funnel cake from carnival vendors. A summer party can be refined or raucous, from wedding receptions to outdoor concerts. Fairfield Porter’s July presents the quiet interactions of a few friends enjoying an afternoon in the backyard. In Weegee’s photograph of Coney Island hardly a spot of sand can even be seen as beachcomers crowd the landscape. As summer typically finds our schedules more open, our social calendars fill with family reunions, picnics, and trips to the beach or the fair.

Exhibition Label:
"Summer in the Central Court," Jun-2006 (alternative label), Kate Meyer
Summer gatherings are marked by distinctive flavors, sights, sounds, and smells. We lug our lawn chairs and sunscreen all over town, listen to the whir of lawnmowers, and associate the aroma of bug spray and fireworks with the Fourth of July. Such events often include eating, and we delight in plastic dinnerware, corn on the cob, fresh watermelon, and the prospect of ordering food on a stick or funnel cake from carnival vendors. A summer party can be refined or raucous, from wedding receptions to outdoor concerts. Fairfield Porter’s July presents the quiet interactions of a few friends enjoying an afternoon in the backyard.

Exhibitions

Summer in the Central Court
Kate Meyer, curator
2006
Fairfield Porter: Familiar Spaces
2002–2003
Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art
2003–2004
Decade of Transformation: American Art of the 1960s
David Cateforis, curator
1999
20/21
Susan Earle, curator
2016–2021
20/21
Susan Earle, curator
2009–2015
20/21
Susan Earle, curator
2016–2021
Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art, 1907–1975
2000
Keep Calm and Breathe
2020

Resources

Audio

Listen to an Art Minute about this piece.
Didactic – Art Minute
Listen to an Art Minute about this piece.
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 11. I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Fairfield Porter’s 1971 painting “July” is pervaded by green - a vivid green that spreads across the canvas to indicate the ground upon which sit four members of Porter’s family. Set at the artist’s vacation home on Great Spruce Island, Maine, this painting captures the specificity of the place, the light, and the time of year. The various elements of the scene - such as the background tree trunks, barn, and farmhouse, are depicted through large, simplified areas of color. The Adirondack chairs in the foreground, represented in flattened perspective, are created by a chalky white paint that captures the feel of the surface of a weathered wooden chair. In the middle of the painting is a block of wood that serves as a makeshift table for cocktails, and as an arrow that leads our eye back across the grassy green field and up toward the spruces. Scattered upon the table are a plate of crackers, two translucent glasses, and a tray with a wheel of brie and a bottle of liquor - all symbols of the kind of middle-class American sensibility that Porter was so good at conjuring. With thanks to Marni Kessler for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.
Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
Audio Tour – Bulldog Podcast
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
The artist is Fairfield Porter, borm 1907, Winnetka, Illinois, died 1975, Southampton, New York. The title of the work is July, created 1971. The work was made with oil on canvas.
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
July is an oil on canvas painting showing a group of people sitting outside in lawn chairs. The painting is about eight and a half feet tall and six and three-quarters feet wide. This large painting is hung high on the wall above our heads. There are four figures and five chairs. Three of the people are turned so the viewer sees only their backs and sides. The fourth person, who sits a bit apart from the others, looks out toward the viewer. His red shirt, under a brown jacket, is the only non-green or neutral tone in the painting. He sits in a metal lawn chair with one of his legs crossed over the other. The other people sit in very substantial, white wooden chairs that are known as Adirondack chairs. There is a fourth Adirondack chair that is empty, and its back is to the viewer. Its geometric components, sunlit and shadowed, create an eye-catching, abstract area in the lower left corner of the canvas. In the semi-circle of Adirondack chairs is a simple, low table with food and drink on it. The people occupy only about the lower third of the composition. Above them, that is, in the distance behind them, there is a grove of ten or so tall, dark evergreen trees casting dark shadows at their bases. The simplified branches of these trees create abstract patterns that strongly contrast with the pale sky. Beyond the trees, there are neutral-toned buildings that fade into the background. To the right in the middle distance there is a white pattern that resembles a type of flower called hollyhocks. Behind the flowers is the corner of a simple barn-shaped structure. The scene is bathed in brilliant light. None of the forms in the painting are sharply in focus. There is strong contrast between the deep darks of the shadows and the bright wash of the sunlit atmosphere and surfaces. The grassy area in which the figures sit is a bright, yellow-green, and defined with only a few strokes of contrasting paint.
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
Enjoy the leisurely summer setting of Fairfield Porter’s July. Set at the artist’s vacation home on Great Spruce Island, Maine, this delightful scene shows four members of the artist’s family luxuriating in an afternoon at rest. The painting’s large size and the empty chair seems to beckon us to join in the fun.