{{Short description|American photographer (1901–1990)}} {{for|the British cyclist|Elliott Porter}} {{Infobox person | name = Eliot Furness Porter | image = Eliot Porter.jpeg | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|1901|12|6}} | birth_place = [[Winnetka, Illinois]], U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1990|11|02|1901|12|06}} | death_place = [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]], U.S. | relatives = [[Fairfield Porter]] (brother) | education = [[Harvard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|AB]], [[Doctor of Medicine|MD]]) }} '''Eliot Furness Porter''' (December 6, 1901 – November 2, 1990) was an American [[photographer]] best known for his color photographs of nature.<ref name=ACMguide>Amon Carter Museum. [http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/index.php Eliot Porter collection guide.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715102555/http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/index.php |date=2018-07-15 }} Retrieved September 12, 2008.</ref>
==Early life and education== Porter credited his father, James Porter, with instilling in him a love for nature as well as a commitment to scientific rigor. An amateur photographer since childhood, Eliot Porter found early inspiration photographing the birds on Maine's [[Great Spruce Head Island]] owned by his family.<ref name="MFAHouston1983">{{Cite book |title=Eliot Porter: Intimate Landscapes |last=Tucker |first=Anne W. |publisher=The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |year=1983 |location=Houston |oclc=222137915}}Exhibition brochure</ref> Porter earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemical engineering from [[Harvard College]] and a [[Doctor of Medicine]] from [[Harvard Medical School]], and remained at Harvard after graduation as a medical researcher.<ref name="ACMbio">Amon Carter Museum. [http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/about.php Biography of Eliot Porter.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725203332/http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/about.php |date=2018-07-25 }} Retrieved September 12, 2008.</ref> One of Eliot Porter's five siblings was the painter and art critic [[Fairfield Porter]].
==Career== Fairfield Porter introduced his older brother to photographer and gallerist [[Alfred Stieglitz]] in about 1930. Stieglitz, after seeing Porter's work, encouraged Porter to work harder. Finally, in 1938, Stieglitz presented Porter's work, taken with a [[Linhof]] view camera, in his [[New York City]] gallery, ''An American Place''. The exhibit's success prompted Porter to pursue photography full-time.<ref name="auto">{{Cite book |title=Eliot Porter |last=Porter |first=Eliot |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=1987 |location=New York |oclc=925354127}}Exhibition catalog</ref>[[File:Bulletin - United States National Museum (1953) (19886824573).jpg|thumb|alt=SOUTHERN AMERICAN REDSTART MALE|Southern [[American Redstart]], male|left]]
Porter became interested in colour photography after a publisher rejected a proposal for a book on birds because black and white images wouldn't clearly differentiate the species. Porter began working with a new color film, [[Kodachrome]], introduced in 1935, but it presented considerable technical challenges, especially for capturing fast-moving birds. Drawing on his chemical engineering and research background Porter experimented extensively until he was able to produce satisfactory images.<ref name="auto"/> His bird photographs were exhibited in 1943, the first ever exhibition of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His book ''American Birds: 10 Photographs in Color'' was published in 1953.<ref name="PorterBirds1953">{{Cite book |title=American Birds: 10 Photographs in Color |last=Porter |first=Eliot |publisher=McGraw Hill |year=1953 |location=New York |oclc=8755014}}</ref> His solo exhibition at Limelight Gallery, NYC., March 21-April 17, 1955 was effectively a retrospective of this work.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Porter, Eliot | author2=Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) | title=Intimate landscapes : photographs | date=1979 | page=132|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art : Dutton | isbn=978-0-87099-210-0 }}</ref>
For twenty years, Porter pursued a project to publish nature photographs combined with quotes from works by [[Henry David Thoreau]]. Not until an associate introduced him to the executive director of the [[Sierra Club]] did Porter find a willing publisher.<ref name="auto"/> His 1962 book, ''In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World'' featured Porter's color nature studies of the [[New England]] woods.<ref name=ACMbio/> The book enjoyed considerable success despite its high price, pioneered the genre of the nature photography coffee-table book, and lead to several other titles by Porter in a similar format published by the Sierra Club and others. It increased Porter's reputation greatly, and he served as a director of the Sierra Club from 1965 to 1971.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sierraclub.org/history/officers/directors.pdf|title=Roster of Sierra Club Directors|publisher=Sierra Club|access-date=2009-10-23}}</ref> He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1971.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter P|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterP.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=10 April 2011}}</ref> In 1979 the work of Eliot Porter was exhibited in Intimate Landscapes, the first one-person show of color photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.<ref>{{cite web |title=Intimate Landscapes: Photographs Porter, Eliot (1979) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/intimate_landscapes_photographs |website=www.metmuseum.org |access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref> This exhibition earned Porter praise as the individual who brought credibility to color photography as a medium of fine art. The image selection defined what is now meant by the term “intimate landscape”: the close-range, quiet compositions of natural elements with muted colors and dense textures, meditative and dense with layered meanings, which were the hallmark of Porter's work at the exclusion of more expansive and spectacular landscapes.
Porter traveled extensively to photograph ecologically important and culturally significant places. He published books of photographs from [[Glen Canyon]] in [[Utah]], [[Maine]], [[Baja California]], [[Galápagos Islands]], [[Antarctica]], [[East Africa]], and [[Iceland]]. His cultural studies included [[Mexico]], [[Egypt]], [[China]], [[Czechoslovakia]], and [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] sites. His book on Glen Canyon, ''The Place No One Knew'', memorialized the canyon's appearance before its inundation by the [[Lake Powell]] reservoir.
[[James Gleick]]’s book ''[[Chaos: Making a New Science]]'' (1987) caused Porter to reexamine his work in the context of [[chaos theory]]. They collaborated on a project published in 1990 as ''Nature's Chaos,'' which combined his photographs with a new essay by Gleick.<ref name=ACMguide/> Porter died in [[Santa Fe, New Mexico]] in 1990 and bequeathed his personal archive to the [[Amon Carter Museum of American Art]] in [[Fort Worth, Texas|Fort Worth]], [[Texas]].<ref name=ACMguide/>
==Personal life== Eliot Porter's brother, [[Fairfield Porter]], was a realist painter and [[art critic]]. His brother-in-law, [[Michael W. Straus]], was a commissioner of the United States [[Bureau of Reclamation]]. Eliot was married to Marian Brown from 1927 until their divorce in 1934. He married Aline Kilham in 1936 and the two moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico together, living in [[Tesuque, New Mexico]] from 1946.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Walsh|first1=George|last2=Naylor|first2=Colin|last3=Held|first3=Michael|title=Contemporary Photographers|date=1982|publisher=St. Martin's Press|location=New York|isbn=0312167911|page=603}}</ref><ref>[http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/about.php Eliot Porter: About Eliot Porter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725203332/http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/porter/about.php |date=2018-07-25 }} Retrieved 2018-08-30.</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Books ==
* ''In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World'', 1962. * ''The Place No One Knew, Glen Canyon on the Colorado'', 1963. * ''Summer Island: Penobscot country'', 1966. * ''Antarctica'', 1978. * ''Intimate Landscapes'', 1979. * ''Southwest'', 1985. * ''Eliot Porter'', 1987. * Birds of North America A Personal Selection", 1972 * ''Nature’s Chaos'', 1990.
==Further reading== * Paul Martineau (2012). ''Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature'', Los Angeles: Getty Publications, {{ISBN|978-1-60606-119-0}} *{{cite book |editor=O'Neill, John P.| title= ''Intimate landscapes : photographs '' | location=New York | publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art | year=1979| url= http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15324coll10/id/77808}}
==External links== *[http://sam.nmartmuseum.org/view/objects/asimages/People$0040626?t:state:flow=cc39c0ce-8561-4e7b-ba0d-6e1c346c91f0 Eliot Porter photographs at New Mexico Museum of Art] *[https://www.cartermuseum.org/artists/eliot-porter Eliot Porter Collection at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Porter, Eliot}} [[Category:American nature photographers]] [[Category:1901 births]] [[Category:1990 deaths]] [[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] [[Category:Artists from Maine]] [[Category:Artists from New Mexico]] [[Category:Sierra Club directors]] [[Category:Photography in Iceland]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:20th-century American photographers]] [[Category:Nature photographers]] [[Category:American conservationists]] [[Category:Harvard Medical School alumni]] [[Category:People from Santa Fe, New Mexico]] [[Category:People from Tesuque, New Mexico]]