Charles Ethan Porter

Porter studied at the National Academy of Design and was among the first African Americans to exhibit there. He opened a studio in Hartford in 1878 and traveled to Paris several years later, bearing a letter of recommendation from Mark Twain. After studying at the Académie Julian from 1881 to 1884, he returned to the States and became best known for his detailed still lifes of fruit and flowers painted in soft colors. Porter died in poverty, owing perhaps to health issues and no doubt to mounting racism worldwide.

By 1877 Porter had set up a studio in downtown Hartford. Mark Twain so admired his work that in 1881 he paid for Porter's travel to Paris for further study. Porter was exposed to the exquisite Impressionist flower paintings of Henri Fantin Latour, who strongly influenced his own carefully composed and loosely- painted flower and fruit still lifes. For several years after returning to the United States, Porter successfully sold his work and exhibited at major venues, such as the National Academy of Design and the American Society of Painters. Only a handful of African-American artists succeeded as-professionals in the nineteenth century, and Porter was the only African-American painter of-his generation to specialize in still life. Inevitably, racism eventually took its toll and he fell into obscurity. Only recently has his fine contribution to American art been recognized.

Porter was born in or about 1847 in Hartford, Connecticut. His family moved to the nearby village of Rockville (now part of Vernon, Connecticut) by the early 1850s. He graduated from the local high school in 1865.

In 1869, after two years of art study at Wesleyan Academy (now known as the Wilbraham & Monson Academy) in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, Porter went on to study at New York's National Academy of Design and was one of the first African Americans to exhibit at the Academy. In 1873 and 1875, he held an exhibit for the American Society of Painters in water color.

Submitted by Le Trianon Gallery