Beschreibung:

Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror signed and dated 'Fairfield Porter 66' (upper right) oil on canvas 20 x 18 in. (50.8 x 45.7 cm.) Painted in 1966.FootnotesProvenance Private collection, Port Washington, New York. Private collection, New York, acquired from the above, 2013. Exhibited New York, Hirschl & Adler Modern at The Park Avenue Armory, Fairfield Porter Celebrating Four Decades at ADAA: The Art Show, March 4-9, 2014. New York, Tibor de Nagy, Fairfield Porter Things as They Are, October 20-December 3, 2016. Rockland, Maine, Dowling Walsh Gallery, 2018. We wish to thank Hirschl & Adler Galleries for their kind assistance in cataloging this lot. Fairfield Porter's Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror is one of the artist's most accomplished still life paintings, executed with an authentically spontaneous sensibility that characterizes Porter's best works from the later part of his artistic career. In Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror, Porter brilliantly exhibits his appreciation for the relaxed, sophisticated qualities of still life painting. The present work was executed within the last decade of his life before his unexpected death, a period when Porter started to work at the height of his artistic abilities with a discernible individual aesthetic that beautifully explored an interplay of abstraction and representation. Through his mastered painterly execution of color, light, and form applied to the canvas with great control of the medium, Porter conveys the vitality and essence of the still life and delivers a unique perspective toward ordinary objects. The painted surface offers a tactile expression of the composition, from the articulated impasto of the petals of the flowers to the smooth brushstrokes of the vase and mirror that suggest its polished and reflective qualities. Porter's Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror is a masterful celebration of the extraordinary beauty and naturalistic splendor of still life painting, as much as it is of the tranquil respite the artist found in his ordinary observations of his lived experiences. In Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror, painted with dynamic brushstrokes and a vivid color palette, Porter depicts a simplistically arranged floral arrangement that includes pink, white, and dark red chrysanthemums in a darkly colored glass vase that rests on a mirrored surface that porter masterfully depicts the reflection of his still life in, all presented amidst a black backdrop. As Porter demonstrates in Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror like in many of his later works, each element of the scene, such as the varying shades of white and pink petals to the solid tones of the table and backdrop, are painted in a manner that resembles the techniques of the color field painters. Porter focuses on applying plains of pure abstracted color of varying shape and size with soft tonal shifts to describe the subject. Furthermore, he flattens the perspective of the table and the backdrop, drawing focus on the still life. The present work is one of two still lifes arranged on a mirrored surface that Porter painted in the Summer of 1966 likely at the Porter's summer home on Great Spruce Head Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. The other still life titled Still Life on a Mirror features the same vase with an array of red and white flowers, as well as the small bud vase placed in the same position to the side of the larger vase. The two works differ in the other objects that make up the still life arrangement, such as the cruet of olive oil and pepper mill in the present work, and differ in the detailing and color palette of the background and treatment of light on the still life. The image, though beautiful and seemingly celebrating the comfortable, middle-class world lived in is not intended to be representative of an ideal scene, but rather a material and a direct transcription from life in Porter's unique style. In Still Life of Flowers on a Mirror, Porter masterfully presents h