The New Yorker(@NewYorker):In 1983, the poet John Ashbery said that Fairfield Porter was “perhaps the major American artist of the century.” It’s not praise you can take at face value—Ashbery and Porter were good friends, and while Porter’s realism often kept him at arm’s length from the Abstract Expressionists, he was embraced by the New York School poets. “But it’s a tempting thought,” Zachary Fine writes. “Ideas made painters and critics impervious to seeing what was in front of them,” he continues. “Porter’s mission was to make people see again.” Fine considers a new exhibition of Fairfield Porter’s soul-cleansing paintings at the Art Students League:

2026.08.31 01:00

In 1983, the poet John Ashbery said that Fairfield Porter was “perhaps the major American artist of the century.” It’s not praise you can take at face value—Ashbery and Porter were good friends, and while Porter’s realism often kept him at arm’s length from the Abstract Expressionists, he was embraced by the New York School poets. “But it’s a tempting thought,” Zachary Fine writes. “Ideas made painters and critics impervious to seeing what was in front of them,” he continues. “Porter’s mission was to make people see again.” Fine considers a new exhibition of Fairfield Porter’s soul-cleansing paintings at the Art Students League: