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| Fairfield Porter Dirigo Island (Butter Island) ca. 1950 watercolor on paper New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut |
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| Fairfield Porter Katie 1953 oil on canvas Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Fairfield Porter Katie and Anne 1955 oil on canvas Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Boy Reading 1955 oil on canvas Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Fairfield Porter Still Life with Casserole 1955 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Portrait of Ted Carey and Andy Warhol 1960 oil on linen Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Fairfield Porter Chrysanthemums under a Blue Sky 1961 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Bill Yoscary Fairfield Porter and poet Kenneth Koch (with drink) ca. 1962 gelatin silver print Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Figures in Interior 1963 watercolor on paper Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Fairfield Porter July Interior 1964 oil on canvas Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter The Screen Porch 1964 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Fairfield Porter The Mirror 1966 oil on canvas Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Fairfield Porter Study for the Silkscreen Interior ca. 1967 watercolor on paper Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Fairfield Porter Forsythia and Pear in Bloom 1968 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Green Girl 1971 lithograph Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Fairfield Porter Late Afternoon Snow 1972 oil on paper, mounted on panel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Snow, South Main Street ca. 1972 oil on paper, mounted on panel Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Fairfield Porter Ocean II 1975 lithograph Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
from The Friend of the Fourth Decade
"Listen," he went on, "I have this friend –
What's that face for? Did you think I had only one?
You are my oldest friend, remember. Well:
Karlheinrich collects stamps. I now spend mornings
With a bowl of water and my postcard box.
Cards from all over. God! Those were the years
I never used to throw out anything.
Each card then soaks five minutes while its ink
Turns to exactly the slow formal swirls
Through which a phoenix flies on Chinese silk.
These leave the water darker but still clear,
The text unreadable. It's true!
Cards from my mother, my great-uncle, you!
And the used waters deepen the sea's blue.
I cannot tell you what this does to me.
Scene upon scene's immersion and emergence
Rinsed of the word. The Golden Gate, Moroccan
Dancing boys, the Alps from Interlaken,
Fuji, the Andes, Titian's Venus, two
Mandrills from the Cincinnati zoo –
All that survives the flood, as does a lighter
Heart than I have had in many a day.
Salt lick big as a fist, heart, hoard
Of self one grew up prizing above rubies –
To feel it even by a grain dissolved,
Absolved I mean, recipient with writer,
By water holy from the tap, by air that dries,
Of having cared and having ceased to care . . ."
– James Merrill (1969)