Fairfield Porter painted images of a leisurely life on Long Island and in Maine when abstract expressionism was ascendant, and in that zeitgeist the idea of an American artist chronicling a trouble-free suburban environment would easily be taken for dilettantism.
“I am a humanist in my work. That is very important to me, to always have content, to always be involved in storytelling that is important to other people. Otherwise, why bother?”
Just what is it about Nicole Eisenman’s work that opened the doors of the Whitney and the New Museum? Why is her work “culturally significant” and the work of generations of figurative painters not?
Mastery of Light: A Retrospective is an exhibition of fifty paintings by David A. Leffel on now through August 7, 2016 at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University.