Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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The American art world grew rapidly in the first half of the twentieth century, instilling artists with both confidence and uncertainty. Excited by new opportunities yet pressed to distinguish themselves from their renowned European counterparts, American artists became preoccupied with depicting themselves and their intimate circles of friends, lovers, and collaborators in other fields. One such community was the Whitney Museum itself, along with its precursor, the Whitney Studio Club. Many of the portraits on view here reflect its early history as a magnet for figures such as Edward Hopper at a time when few artists had found institutional support or even gathering places for likeminded colleagues. Other works capture the vital presence of émigrés, such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Stella, or point to the rising prominence of women artists, such as Isabel Bishop and Georgia O’Keeffe. Alternately styled as virtuoso, hero, technician, bohemian, or everyman, both the creators and subjects of these portraits staked a claim to their authority as artists, addressing themselves directly to an audience increasingly attuned to their endeavors.

Below is a selection of works from Portrait of the Artist.

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Fairfield Porter’s The Screen Porch is an unconventional family portrait. Painted at the artist’s Maine studio during a summer vacation, it portrays his two young daughters and the poet James Schuyler, with whom Porter was having an open affair. Porter’s wife, Anna, looks in from outside, while the viewer observes the foursome from the artist’s perspective. Although Porter’s broad, flat application of paint precludes clearly articulated facial expression, the figures’ divergent gazes imply a lack of engagement with one another. His family jokingly referred to this composition as “The Four Ugly People,” a characterization that may have reflected tension within a nontraditional familial arrangement.

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portrait of the Artist

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THE SCREEN PORCH, 1964

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portrait of the Artist

3

THE SCREEN PORCH, 1964

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection