Medium/Discipline: Painting, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Place of Death: Washington, DC
Maryland Affiliation: Born here
Prominent Theme: Realism
Places of Residence: Maryland; Washington, DC; West Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Portugal, Brazil 1963-64
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Black/African-American
Biography: James A. Porter, considered by many to be "The Father of African American Art History," was a prolifically published art historian and artist. Born in Baltimore in 1905, Porter was the youngest of seven children of his father John, a Methodist minister, and Lydia Peck Porter, a teacher. He received his early education in Maryland and entered the public schools in Washington, DC in 1918. He graduated in 1923 with honors from Armstrong High School, where he served as Class Treasurer and gave the Salutatory address at the graduation ceremony. The following fall, he entered Howard University's School of Applied Sciences on an art scholarship. He studied painting, drawing and history. His instructor James V. Herring founded the Howard University Art Department in 1927, when James A. Porter graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art and began serving immediately upon graduation as an art instructor in the department. He continued his art training in New York, studying the art of figure drawing with George Bridgman at the Art Students League.
While on sabbatical from teaching at Howard University, Porter received a number of scholarships and stipends to travel throughout Europe studying Medieval Archaeology at the Sorbonne in Paris, European painting and African art. While visiting France, he met many West Africans, including Senegalese dancer Feral Benga, whose portrait he painted that is now a part of the National Museum of American Art collection in DC.
In 1943, he published the seminal Modern Negro Art which remains to this day one of the fundamental references on African American art from the 18th-century forward. Modern Negro Art related two centuries of artwork by African Americans to the histories of both American and modern art. The book was reprinted in 1963 and 1992, and continues to be a source of bibliographic information and research tools for African American art history.
In 1953, Porter became Head of the Department of Art and Director of the Art Gallery at Howard University. Upon his death, a gallery within the campus museum was dedicated as the James A. Porter Gallery of African-American Art. During his chairmanship, Howard University was one of 20 colleges selected to receive a collection of Renaissance paintings and sculptures as a means to promote scholarship. Porter became an expert on Dutch painting during this time and in 1957 was appointed a Fellow of the Belgium-American Art Seminar studying Flemish and Dutch art of the 16th through 18th centuries. During his tenure as head of the gallery, he organized many important exhibitions, including "New Vistas in American Art," and expanded the university art collection considerably with private funding to include many works by black artists. Porter lectured widely in the United States and in West Africa, and served on the Arts Council of Washington, DC from 1961-63. In 1962 he became a delegate-member of the International Congress on African Art and Culture held in Southern Rhodesia. He took a sabbatical in 1963-64 to travel throughout Africa with funding from a (Washington) Evening Star Faculty Research Grant. He planned to produce a book on West African art and architecture but expanded the focus to include "A Project of Travel, Study and Original Research to Develop Materials Essential to the Completion of a Book on the Ultra-African Art in the Western World." The study was to determine the inherent traits and elemental forms of African art that were sustained in the New World art by black artists. The results of this work became part of the Howard University curriculum in that he used his photographs and personal experiences as a means of instruction.
While traveling throughout Africa, he collected African art and created 25 paintings; he wrote, "I hope most sincerely that my paintings reflect the enthusiasm, understanding and admiration which I have felt for Africa and Africans, even though, admittedly, the most skillful expatriate artist may utterly fail to capture those ineffable traits in the African people which we believe are made visible to us in their arts." He was acclaimed throughout his career for his leadership in art education and in expanding opportunities for blacks in the arts. He said in 1966 while receiving an award from the Pyramid Club that, "[Howard University was] among the first to send exhibitions to the South to schools whose students weren't allowed admission to the museums. We've sent our graduates to teach in those schools. We've exhibited works of Negro artists...Also, by meeting the high standards of the College Art Association, the American Federation of Artists, and the National Association of Schools of Art, we've gotten the kind of academic recognition that has won us respect from white and Negro alike."
James A. Porter worked in a realistic style in prints, book illustration, oils, charcoal, pencil, watercolor, pastels, egg tempera and fresco painting. An exhibition entitled "Afro-American Images, 1971" was dedicated to his work as an artist and art historian from 1930 until his passing in 1970. His work is represented in private collections and in the DuSable Museum (Chicago, Illinois), Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee), the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center (Wilberforce, OH), the Anacostia Museum, the Museum of African Art (Barrett Aden Collection), the National Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery (all in Washington, DC), to name a few. He also designed a window located in The Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, presented by the Howard Women to the University in 1947, for Lucy Diggs Stowe, dean of Women at Howard University. Porter's legacy of scholarship is also honored through the James A. Porter Inaugural Annual Colloquium on African American Art held at Howard University.
Education/Training: B.A. Art, Howard University, 1923-27; Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, summer, 1927, 1928; Art Students League, New York, 1929; M.A. History of Art, Fine Arts Graduate Center, New York University, 1937
Taught By: James V. Herring, Howard University; Dimitri Romanovsky, George Bridgeman, Art Students League
Art-related Employment: artist; painter; curator; art historian; arts council member; lecturer; writer
Other Employment: UNESCO Conference on Africa delegate, 1961
Selected References: Long, Richard A. Exhibition pamphlet, "Dream Variations, Series II," (New Orleans, Louisiana: Stella Jones Gallery), April 2-May 31, 2001.
Porter, James A. Modern Negro Art (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press), 1943, 1969, 1992.
Porter, James A. James A. Porter, Artist and Art Historian: The Memory of the Legacy. (Washington, DC: Howard University Gallery of Art), 1992.
Porter, James A. James Amos Porter: Spotlight on His Works on Paper. (Ft. Lauderdale, FL: Westport Foundation & Gallery), 1998.
Other Publications: Hambly, Wilfrid. Talking Animals. Illustrated by James A. Porter. (Washington, DC: the Associated Publishers, Inc.), 1949. Illustrated by James A. Porter.
Hart, George Overbury. A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Prints and Drawings by George O. "Pop" Hart, 1868-1933. Assembled by James A. Porter. (Washington, DC: Howard University Gallery of Art), 1956.
Porter, James A. The American Negro as Artist, 1724-1900. Dissertation: Thesis (M.A.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 1937.
Porter, James A. Books About Negro Life for Children, 1957.
Porter, James A. Charles White: Drawings. Inaugural exhibition, Sept. 22-Oct. 25, 1967, (Washington, DC: Howard University Gallery of Art, College of Fine Arts), 1967.
Porter, James A. Play Songs of the Deep South, (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc.), 1944.
Porter, James A. Prints by American Negro Artists. (Los Angeles: Cultural Exchange Center of Los Angeles, California), 1965.
Trent-Johns, Altona. Play Songs of the Deep South. (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc.), 1949. Illustrated by James A. Porter.
Maryland Institutions Holding Biographical Material: Baltimore Museum of Art (Vertical files)
Awards: Harmon Foundation, Honorable Mention, 1929; Harmon Foundation Arthur Schomberg Portrait Prize, 1933; Carnegie Foundation Institute of International Education scholarship for study in Paris, 1935; Rockefeller Foundation Travel Grant for study of European painting and African art in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Italy, 1935; Rockefeller Foundation Travel Grant for travel, museum visitations and interviews with cultural affairs officers and artists in Cuba and Haiti, 1945-46; Achievement of Art Award, Pyramid Club of America, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1966; Honorarium and Distinguished Service to Education in Art, National Gallery of Art
|
 |
|
