October Interior

Artist Fairfield Porter (1907 - 1975)

Date1963

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions56 × 72 in. (142.2 × 182.9 cm)
Framed: 58 in. × 74 in. × 2 1/2 in.

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2010.89

Signedl.r.: Fairfield Porter '63

Accession number 2010.89

On View

Not on view

Provenance(Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, NY); purchased by Paul Roebling [1934-1994] and Olga Bellin Roebling [1933-1987], New York, NY; (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY); purchased by Daniel Fraad [1912-1987] and Rita Fraad [1915-2004], 1987; (Sotheby's, New York, NY), December 1, 2004, lot 241; purchased by a private foundation for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2004
Label TextOctober Interior is set in the sunroom of Porter’s home in Southampton, Long Island. His older daughter, Katie, sits at right, turning outward to watch the artist work, while in the left background, across the narrow lawn, his younger daughter, Liz, plays by the swing set. In the center of the room between two patio chairs is a low square table topped with potted plants, and before it a child’s rocking horse.

Porter’s rendering of the houseplants and foliage verges on painterly abstraction, yet these vibrant color passages are held in check by the ordering symmetry of the three vertical windows. In its exploration of interior and exterior realities, Porter’s painting is laden with references to domesticity, family relationships, and the passing of time. October Interior is firmly rooted in place, poetic and vibrantly alive in its expressive rendering of space, color, and light.

Inscribedverso, on stretcher: October Interior-oil-Fairfield Porter-1964