Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)

Fairfield Porter painted several portrait commissions in the course of his career, including the present lot of James Deely, a banker from Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The work is one of five known portraits that Porter painted of this subject. One of these examples, completed in 1974, was considered by Porter to be one of the greatest paintings he ever produced. In a letter from May of that year, Porter stated of the work, “I just finished a portrait of James Deely, this week-end, at Stockbridge…the new one I think may be one of the great American portraits…” Painted in the last fifteen years of Porter’s life, a period generally considered to be the best of the artist’s career, the present portrait exemplifies many of the hallmarks of Porter’s mature style--his masterful painterly approach, his interest in the formal qualities of an artwork, and his expert ability to blur the line between realism and abstraction.