Fairfield Porter Self Portrait, 1968 Oil on canvas, 59 x 45 3/8 " The Dayton Art Institute, Museum purchase with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and various other sources.

From March 23 to May 27, 2000, the AXA Gallery (formerly the Equitable Gallery) will present a major exhibition on the work of the American painter, art critic, and poet Fairfield Porter (1907-1975). Guest curated by Justin Spring, author of the acclaimed biography Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art (Yale University Press), the exhibition, of the same title, features more than 40 paintings, watercolors, and drawings on loan from museums and private collections throughout the country. Taken together, the exhibition and biography offer a major critical re-evaluation of Porter’s life and work.

As a painter, Fairfield Porter forged a distinctly American vision out of two disparate styles: the first—intimate, sensual and representa­tional; and the second—colorful, gestural and abstract. Porter’s broad knowledge of art history and theory informed not only his art criticism but his painting as well. His work as a writer and painter is, according to Spring, best considered as a single lifelong project in which he perpetually sought to define for himself his relation to the world.

Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art was organized by the AXA Gallery, which is sponsored by AXA Financial, Inc. and its subsidiary The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.

Fairfield Porter Laurence at the Piano, 1953 Oil on canvas, 40 x 30" The New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut, General Purchase.

More than any other American painter of his generation, Fairfield Porter poignantly defined the look and feel of everyday, domestic life. “Perhaps no other American artist of the twentieth century has created such hauntingly intimate images of family and home as Fairfield Porter,” writes Justin Spring. “Certainly few other artists of this century have possessed such extraordinary intelligence.”

Porter’s distinct approach to painting drew from his love of French Intimism (especially the work of Edouard Vuillard) and the New York Abstract Expressionist school. His great hero in this group was the painter and friend Willem de Kooning. Choosing as his subjects those places and homes to which he felt most deeply connected and those people with whom he had close, and often complex, relationships, Porter produced a body of work of tremendous personal significance and emotional power. The full impact of these paintings can now be more clearly appreciated in the context of the artist’s life. The exhibition examines the ways in which Porter’s paintings are in fact intimately biographical.

Porter was also one of the most well-informed and articulate art critics of the 1950s and ’60s. The work of a highly educated and well-traveled intellectual, Porter’s critical writings on art have remained among the most important interpretations of their time.

Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art traces Porter’s early influential relationships with art historians and artists, including Bernard Berenson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Rosenfeld, John Marin and Thomas Hart Benton. The exhibition also examines the ways in which Porter’s painting was inspired by his lifelong passion for poetry and philosophy. He was especially influenced by the work of poets T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, John Brooks Wheelwright, Kenneth Rexroth, Edwin Denby, John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara, and finally his wife, Anne Porter, whose book, An Altogether Different Language: Poems 1934-1994, was a finalist for the 1994 National Book Award in poetry.

The Equitable Gallery has changed its name to the AXA Gallery, following the name change of The Equitable Companies, Inc. to AXA Financial, Inc. That name change took place in September 1999.

Fairfield Porter Morning Landscape, 1965 oil on canvas, 79 ½ x 80 " Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Rowe Giesen.

The AXA Gallery presents works from all fields of the visual arts, including exhibitions originating outside of New York that would not otherwise have a presence in the city, as well as works from New York collections that would benefit from preservation and public presentation.

The AXA Gallery is located in the atrium lobby of Equitable Tower, 787 Seventh Avenue at 51^st Street in New York City. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.