Sachi Yanari-Rizzo, Research Curator
A stunning new addition to the FWMoA’s permanent collection is a still life of petunias by Charles Ethan Porter. Information about his life and work is sparse as extant primary sources are scarce. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut and grew up in Rockville, but there is a lack of clarity on his birth year. His gravestone states 1849, whereas his death certificate and obituary suggest 1847.
Porter’s father, William, was born a free man in Belchertown, near Amherst, Massachusetts. His mother, Mary, was part Native American and African American, and her family lived in Hartford from the late 18th century. William purchased land in 1857 and built a home. They were among the first Black families to settle there.
In 1869, Porter became the first African American student admitted to the National Academy of Design in New York. Although he gave art lessons to help cover his expenses, the Rockville community rallied together by holding a musical benefit on his behalf to support another year of school. Porter’s education included drawing from plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculptures, life drawing, and studies in perspective and anatomy. Still life was not part of the studies there at the time, yet his entries into the Academy’s exhibitions were both still life paintings. William Merritt Chase and William Harnett submitted still lifes as well, perhaps revealing a growing interest in the genre.
In November 1881, Porter moved to Paris with the intent of staying for two years. He netted around $1,000 by auctioning off works in his studio to fund the trip. Porter brought letters of introduction from prominent Hartford residents, including Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain). No records confirm where Porter studied, although he assured the author that he was attending a well-known school. He registered for courses at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, also known as the Petite École, but it is unclear if he attended there, Académie Julien, or both. He lived at 13 rue des Beaux-Arts, perhaps revealing his hope of getting admitted to the esteemed École des Beaux-Arts.
Porter sought to study landscape painting abroad, surely in part through the supportive comments of Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church, who was also born in Hartford, CT. Church purchased paintings from Porter and praised his use of color and atmosphere. Porter, however, continued to create still lifes, writing to Clemens in 1883, “My fruit and flowers are greatly admired by the French.”[1]
Porter’s informal bouquet of petunias in the FWMoA’s collection is modest in comparison to American mid-19th century still lifes, such as those by Severin Roesen. Celebrating nature’s bounty through scale and subject, Roesen and his circle painted veritable cornucopias of flowers, fruit, bird’s nests, and insects. Instead, Porter tended to focus on a single type of flower, ones that were easily accessed, such as asters, daisies, peonies, morning glories, and roses.
In Petunias, Porter depicted trumpet-like flowers from all angles. Tendrils and stems become elegant arabesques that hold heavy, drooping blooms. One blossom has fallen, and its reflection is caught on the shiny surface of the table. Using loose, sweeping strokes, Porter captures the essence of the flower’s shape. He foregoes the detail that was a hallmark of his early work. The soft hues used in the flowers are limited to muted whites, pinks, and blues.
Porter dated few of his works and when he signed them, and his letters varied in style. While this painting is undated, the letter “P” in his last name has a long stem that curves down and resembles the signature used in a painting of asters dated 1881.[2]
Upon the artist’s return from Paris, the Hartford Courant reported that Porter’s “dainty, almost finicky, work we were so familiar with. . . has been superseded by a broader, freer style—color and detail count for less, breadth and harmonious tone for very much more than former.’”[3] Art historian Helen K. Fusscas observed that Porter’s post-Paris work (roughly 1884-85) was characterized by a light palette, vigorous, broad brushstrokes, and a “composition [that] curves around a negative center of leaves and undefined bloom,”[4] She also noted the “lack of definition of the ground and backdrop.”[5] These stylistic descriptions point to the possibility that Petunias was created during this time period. In subsequent paintings from the late 1880s, the artist returned to dark, rich colors and a distinct light source.
Was Porter inspired by the highly criticized Impressionists to brighten his palette and loosen his brushstrokes? It seems likely that he would have become aware of French realist artist Henri Fantin-Latour from the Paris Salon exhibitions. He was an accomplished still life painter, who received the Legion of Honor award in 1879. Fantin-Latour lived at 8 rue des Beaux-Arts, near Porter, but it is unknown if they met. The Frenchman’s 1881 painting Petunias from the Detroit Institute of Arts shares an affinity with Porter’s painting. They showed their preference for casual flower arrangements in simple vases, set against a nondescript background. Both artists present lively compositions as the viewer’s eye follows the light-colored, flared blossoms that stand out against areas of dark green made up of stems and leaves.
Porter exhibited at the National Academy of Design after his student days but received limited acclaim during his lifetime, perhaps for several reasons. Through most of his career, the public still viewed a hierarchy among painting genres. Still life remained at the bottom until the end of the 19th century, ranked below landscape, portraiture, and history painting.
Author Henry French wrote in Art and Artists in Connecticut, “Being a colored man, Mr. Porter has found shameful obstacles placed in his path, but is manfully fighting them with a love of art and an enthusiasm that must conquer.”[6]
Porter, with a commitment to be a professional artist, understood his important place in history when he wrote to Clemens, “Now I am aware that there are a goodly number of my Hartford friends and others who are anxious to see how the colored artists will make out, but this is not the motive which impresses me. The colored people—my people—as a race I am interested in, and my success, will only add to others who have already shown wherein they are capable the same as other men.”[7]
To see more art from the FWMoA permanent collection, plan your next visit!
[1]Charles Ethan Porter and New Britain Museum of American Art, Charles Ethan Porter: African-American Master of Still Life (New Britain, CT: New Britain Museum of American Art, 2007), 62.
[2] For a discussion on Charles Ethan Porter’s signatures see Charles Ethan Porter, Helen K. Fusscas, Hildegard Cummings, and David C. Driskell, Charles Ethan Porter, 1847?-1923 (Marlborough, CT: The Connecticut Gallery, Inc., 1987), 51-52.
[3] Porter and New Britain Museum of American Art, Charles Ethan Porter: African-American Master of Still Life, 70.
[4] Porter, Fusscas, Cummings, and Driskell, Charles Ethan Porter, 1847?-1923, 34.
[5] Porter, Fusscas, Cummings, and Driskell, Charles Ethan Porter, 1847?-1923, 44.
[6] Porter, Fusscas, Cummings, and Driskell, Charles Ethan Porter, 1847?-1923, 88.
[7]Porter and New Britain Museum of American Art, Charles Ethan Porter: African-American Master of Still Life, 101.