In 1975, Fairfield Porter, A.B. Roofs of Cambridge, 1927 by Fairfield Porter | ©2024 The Estate of Fairfield Porter/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. image courtesy of the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, N.Y., Gift of the Estate of Fairfield Porter, 1980.10.120Porter came from a distinguished Harvardian family that valued creativity. Porter influenced younger artists including Alex Katz, who proclaimed, “Fairfield Porter is a painter of great refinement and subtlety. The MFA’s 1984 retrospective, “Fairfield Porter: Realist Artist in an Age of Abstraction,” resulted in “a sweeping transformation” of the painter’s reputation and status, according to Hilton Kramer.