The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Nyack

Nyack

1966–1967
(American, 1907–1975)
America, 20th century
oil on canvas
Framed: 211 x 283 x 4 cm (83 1/16 x 111 7/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 208.3 x 279.4 cm (82 x 110 in.)
Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art 1968.3
© The Estate of Fairfield Porter / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Location: 001C ArtLens Exhibition

Did You Know?

Fairfield Porter’s older brother Eliot was an accomplished nature photographer.

Description

A restful scene on a hot summer day in 1954 inspired Fairfield Porter to sketch the original composition for this painting. He and his wife Anne were visiting painter Jane Freilicher and her husband in Nyack, New York, a town on the Hudson River, north of Manhattan. The two women are depicted under an old ash tree-Jane painting a landscape and Anne reading a book by the English writer Ronald Firbank (1886-1926). The following winter, Porter made a small painting from the sketch. This canvas evolved twelve years later, as the artist considered improving the smaller version. Since he could no longer remember the exact details and colors of the original scene, he decided to render the forms in broad, flat areas that define only the essential shapes.
  • (Tibor de Nagy Gallery).
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969. Mentioned: p. 4 archive.org
    Henning, Edward B. “South of His House, North of His House: Nyack, a Painting by Fairfield Porter.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 3 (March 1971): 85–90. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 88-89, fig. 8 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 255 archive.org
    Hinson, Tom E. “Alex Katz’s Impala.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 8 (October 1986): 314–26. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 320-321, fig. 11 www.jstor.org
    Wilmerding, John. Fairfield Porter. New York: Rizzoli, 2016. Reproduced: p. 160-161, pl. 62
  • Southampton, NY, The Parrish Art Museum, Fairfield Porter: An American Painter, 1950-1975 (27 June - 28 August 1993); traveled to Amherst, MA, Mead Art Museum (29 October - 24 December); traveled to Notre Dame, IN, Snite Museum of Art (20 January - 20 March 1994); traveled to Buffalo, NY, Albright-Knox Art Gallery (23 May - 3 July 1994); cat. no. 35, p. 93, ill. p. 51.
    Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Fairfield Porter (1907-1975): Realist Painter in an Age of Abstraction (5 January - 13 May 1983); traveled to Greenville, SC, Greenville County Museum of Art (20 April - 19 June 1983); traveled to Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art (9 November - 31 December 1983); traveled to Pittsburgh, PA, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (18 February - 22 April 1984); cat. No. 63, pl. 105, ill. p. 42.
    CMA: Works from the Contemporary Collection, July 1-mid-October, 1969
    Works from the Contemporary Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 1-October 15, 1969).
    Year in Review: 1968. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 29-March 9, 1969).
    Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Year in Review, Bulletin (January 1969), p. 48, no. 116, repr. p. 29, (29 January - 9 March 1969).
    Chicago, IL, Richard Gray Gallery, Retrospective Exhibition (6 March - 6 April 1968); brochure in Curatorial File.
    New York, NY, Tibor de Naby Gallery, Fairfield Porter (February - March 1968).
    New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1967 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting (13 December 1967 - 4 February 1968), listed no. 116, p. 12.
  • {{cite web|title=Nyack|url=false|author=Fairfield Porter|year=1966–1967|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1968.3