Shirley Jaffe
SHIRLEY JAFFE
Elizabeth, New Jersey, 1923 – Louveciennes, France, 2016
The White Day
About 1955
Oil on canvas
129.6 x 194.9 cm
Purchase, the Museum Campaign 1988-1993 Fund, Women of Influence Circle Fund, and Giverny Capital Fund in memory of Pierre Théberge
Photo MMFA, Jean-François Brière
American artist Shirley Jaffe moved to Paris in 1949 and spent the rest of her life there. She developed close friendships with Sam Francis, Jean Paul Riopelle and Joan Mitchell, among others. Echoes of these ties can be found in the Museum’s holdings of Francis and Riopelle, as well as of other mid-century artists working in Paris, such as Pierre Soulages and Simon Hantaï.
The White Day is one of the rare paintings the artist produced in landscape orientation in the 1950s. It was created within what is considered Jaffe’s abstract expressionist period (1952-1963).
The title of the work further suggests that it is connected to landscape. Although it is impossible to identify the elements depicted in the painting, landscape is conceptually palpable in its sensation, its breath and its vitality. The palette is rich and vibrant, and the white undertones generate both cadence and luminosity in the work, positioning it solidly in the lineage of Impressionism.
Fluid brushstrokes, variously dense, opaque or translucent, form the abstract, gestural language through which Jaffe dramatically orchestrates space. The artist’s marks are varied: laboured, emphatic and vigorous, yet simultaneously discreet. Drips throughout suggest she also makes way for spontaneity, allowing the natural laws of gravity to play their role. Movement, generally articulated in the painting’s darker hues, is balanced with open space, as if measured and deliberately holding back on its offer of unadulterated beauty.
