July, Fairfield Porter

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.

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.

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.

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.