James A. Porter - Biography

Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Porter had a long career in the visual arts as an artist and historian. Under the direction of James V. Herring, head of the Art Department at Howard University, Porter studied painting, drawing, and art history. Upon graduating with a bachelor of science in 1927, he accepted a position as instructor of painting and drawing at Howard. Throughout his academic professional career, Porter painted and exhibited nationally and internationally. In 1933 he received the Schomburg Portrait Prize, from the Harmon Foundation, for the painting entitled Woman Holding a Jug (1930).

After completing undergraduate work, Porter attended the Art Institute in New York City. He also studied in Paris at the Institute of Art and Archeology at the Sorbonne, where he received a Certificat de Présence in 1935. When Porter returned to the United States, he pursued a master of arts in art history from New York University in 1937. Porter’s thesis, which would later become the foundation for the book Modern Negro Art, focused on African-American artists and artisans.

During his educational pursuits, Porter met Dorothy Burnett, a librarian at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library, where he did research. On December 27, 1929, Porter and Burnett were married. They had one daughter, Constance Porter. This union proved to be important, not only personally but also professionally. Dorothy worked with Porter, as she provided bibliographic information critical to his investigations. Both worked at Howard University. Dorothy Porter was the director of Moorland Foundation later known as the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, where she catalogued information about African-American artists.

Porter’s interest in nearly forgotten and often ignored artists of African descent was sparked by reading a brief article on African-American landscape artist Robert Scott Duncanson. Due to the account's brevity, Porter followed his curiosity to research Duncanson and other artists of African descent.

Modern Negro Art, published in 1943, was the first comprehensive study in the United States of African-American art. Porter decisively placed African-American artists within the framework of American art. He was the first to recognize and document the significant contributions these artists made to the history of American art. With Porter’s systematic approach, Modern Negro Art became and still is the grounding for African-American art history and for later texts.

Porter included art of Cuba, Haiti, and Africa in his investigations of artists of the African diaspora. He visited Haiti and Cuba on a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1945/46. The Cuban government spurned his painting, The Cuban Bus. His thorough research on these countries and West Africa stimulated his creating courses at Howard in "Latin American Art" and "African Art and Architecture".