Port Jefferson
Artist
Leonid Berman
(American, born Russia, 1896 - 1976)
Date1949
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 36 1/4 × 50 1/8 inches (92.08 × 127.32 cm)
Framed: 44 3/8 × 58 1/4 × 3 1/2 inches (112.71 × 147.96 × 8.89 cm)
Framed: 44 3/8 × 58 1/4 × 3 1/2 inches (112.71 × 147.96 × 8.89 cm)
Credit LineGift of William T. Kemper Jr. through the Friends of Art
Object number49-81
SignedSigned and dated lower right: Leonid. 49.
InscribedInscribed on verso top center: Port Jefferson / (Long Island) / Port Jefferson / (L.I.) / Leonid / 1949 / 50 × 36 inches
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionHill in foreground with figure prone viewing harbor and sand dunes below him.Exhibition HistoryGallery Label
In a letter to his dealer written in 1949, Leonid Berman described Port Jefferson as “perhaps the best of my new canvases and certainly the largest.” This painting of a harbor on New York’s Long Island integrates several elements from Berman’s preparatory works that hang nearby. A small figure in the foreground leads the eye into a picture dominated by a winding shoreline. Without this figure lying in the sand and looking over the dunes and water, the painting could slip from landscape to abstraction.
Leonid, exh. pamphlet (New York: Durlacher Bros., 1949), unpagi
nated; Belle Krasne, “Wordless Lyrics Composed by Leonid,” Art
Digest 24 (1 January 1950), 17; “Paintings in Newly Opened One-
Man Shows,” New York Times, 8 January 1950, 90; Stuart Preston,
“Landscape Contrasts: Leonid and Carl Gaertner—Other Attrac
tions,” New York Times, 8 January 1950, 90; “Art: Spacemaker,”
Time, 23 January 1950, 30; D. S., “Reviews and Previews: Leonid,”
Art News 48 (January 1950), 43; “‘Port Jefferson,’ a Seascape by
Leonid, Added to Gallery,” Kansas City Star, 17 February 1950, 17;
“Art Friends Pay $4,500; a Canvas by Georges Rouault Is Selected;
Patrons Choose ‘Duo’ for the Permanent Contemporary Collec
tion of the Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times, 9 December 1950,
4; “Friends of Art,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 17 (February
1951), unpaginated; “The Home Forum,” Christian Science Monitor, 19 May 1951, 8; Winifred Shields, “Traditional New England
Scenes Attract Artists Year after Year,” Kansas City Star, 15 August
1952, 20; NAMA 1959, 150, 256; NAMA 1973, 204, 253; Robert
Pincus-Witten, “Michael Hurson, ‘Projects,’ the Museum of Modern Art; ‘Leonid and His Friends: Tchelitchew, Berman, Berard,’
the New York Cultural Center; Herb Aach, Martha Jackson Gallery,” Artforum 13 (December 1974), 78; Leonid and His Friends:
Tchelitchew, Berman, Bérard, exh. cat. (New York: New York Cultural Center, in association with Fairleigh Dickinson University,
1974), 33, 53; Gerrit Henry, “‘Leonid and His Friends’ at the New
York Cultural Center,” Art in America 63 (July–August 1975), 108;
Nicholas S. Pickard, “The Friends of Art of the Nelson Gallery-
Atkins Museum: A History,” typescript, 1981, Spencer Art Reference Library, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, B7; NAMA 1991,
178–79.
nated; Belle Krasne, “Wordless Lyrics Composed by Leonid,” Art
Digest 24 (1 January 1950), 17; “Paintings in Newly Opened One-
Man Shows,” New York Times, 8 January 1950, 90; Stuart Preston,
“Landscape Contrasts: Leonid and Carl Gaertner—Other Attrac
tions,” New York Times, 8 January 1950, 90; “Art: Spacemaker,”
Time, 23 January 1950, 30; D. S., “Reviews and Previews: Leonid,”
Art News 48 (January 1950), 43; “‘Port Jefferson,’ a Seascape by
Leonid, Added to Gallery,” Kansas City Star, 17 February 1950, 17;
“Art Friends Pay $4,500; a Canvas by Georges Rouault Is Selected;
Patrons Choose ‘Duo’ for the Permanent Contemporary Collec
tion of the Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times, 9 December 1950,
4; “Friends of Art,” Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 17 (February
1951), unpaginated; “The Home Forum,” Christian Science Monitor, 19 May 1951, 8; Winifred Shields, “Traditional New England
Scenes Attract Artists Year after Year,” Kansas City Star, 15 August
1952, 20; NAMA 1959, 150, 256; NAMA 1973, 204, 253; Robert
Pincus-Witten, “Michael Hurson, ‘Projects,’ the Museum of Modern Art; ‘Leonid and His Friends: Tchelitchew, Berman, Berard,’
the New York Cultural Center; Herb Aach, Martha Jackson Gallery,” Artforum 13 (December 1974), 78; Leonid and His Friends:
Tchelitchew, Berman, Bérard, exh. cat. (New York: New York Cultural Center, in association with Fairleigh Dickinson University,
1974), 33, 53; Gerrit Henry, “‘Leonid and His Friends’ at the New
York Cultural Center,” Art in America 63 (July–August 1975), 108;
Nicholas S. Pickard, “The Friends of Art of the Nelson Gallery-
Atkins Museum: A History,” typescript, 1981, Spencer Art Reference Library, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, B7; NAMA 1991,
178–79.
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