Jason Farago reviews Maureen Gallace: Clear Day at MoMA PS1, Queens, on view through September 10, 2017.

Farago writes: “… Ms. Gallace does not paint en plein air. These seemingly regional artworks are created in a New York City studio far from the hush of New England, with the help of sketches and photographs. Note how, in her best works, the cabin or cabana stands slightly off center, and always occupies just a bit too much of the canvas for comfort. Her gaze is more ornery and distanced than those of other contemporary American realists, like the great Catherine Murphy or the young Massachusetts artist Josephine Halvorson, who paint residential details from sight. With Ms. Gallace, by contrast, each Connecticut or Cape Cod scene remains awkwardly but satisfyingly poised between faithful likeness and pure form. Much modern still-life painting — Cézanne’s and Morandi’s, especially — has that tension.”