prints, countering Adams’s comments that color
was too close to nature by pointing out the great
degree of control the dye-transfer process afforded,
a process Porter practiced at a particularly high
level. Now largely obsolete, dye transfer allowed
meticulous adjustment of color through the use of
three separations or negatives for each color (cyan
to print red, magenta to print green, and yellow to
print blue). As one of the first photographers
to work almost exclusively in color, Porter was
able to produce ravishing and archival color prints
through this process. And unlike many of his con-
temporaries who saw the natural splendors of the
landscape as something to excerpt and freeze in
almost abstract qualities of black-and-white, Porter
approached his natural subjects as a means signify-
ing the larger interconnectness of life.
Porter’s photography became his license to see the
world. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he explored
the terrain of the Americas including Mexico and
Baja California; Glen Canyon, Utah, and the Grand
Canyon; Adirondack Park, New York; the Great
Smoky Mountains National Park, and Red River
Gorge, Kentucky. From 1965 to 1980 he traveled to
some of the most exotic and remote places in the
world to take photographs: Gala ́pagos Islands;
Greece and Turkey; Africa; Iceland; Egypt; Antarc-
tica; China and Macao. The subjects he investigated
while on these trips significantly expanded his reper-
toire beyond birds and landscapes and included
vistas, animals, architectural monuments, and peo-
ple. Perseverance paid off and he was able to turn
his photographs of most of these excursions into
books. His first immensely successful publication,
In Wildness is the Preservation of the World(1962),
set the standard for a new style of books with high-
quality reproductions combined with texts in a non-
linear way. One of the first popular photographic
‘‘coffee table books,’’ this lavish volume was also the
first art book published by the environmental
group, Sierra Club. It was through this project that
Porter became associated with the Sierra Club; he
joined Ansel Adams on their Board of Directors in
- Although Porter is associated with environ-
mentalism and conservation, his ultimate success
flowed from his independent vision. In 1986, after
retiring from photography, he said, ‘‘You have to
take the best pictures you can, what moves you
most’’ (Hester 1986).
Another of Porter’s influential volumes wasThe
Tree Where Man Was Born and the African Experi-
encewith author Peter Matthiessen. Published in
1972, this was one of the first color nature books
that conveyed the interrelatedness of man, the nat-
ural world, and animals, and showed a full range of
the daily life of African herdsmen, anthropologists
and other scientists at work, animal behavior
(including dramatic photos of a cheetah kill), and
landscapes of Tanzania.
Eliot Porter’s archives are held by the Amon Car-
ter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The archive
includes photographic material from 1939–1990,
papers from 1866–1993, and an 1100-volume perso-
nal library. A detailed account of the archive’s hold-
ings can be accessed online http://www.cartermu
seum.org/collections/porter/index.php.Porterdiedin
Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2 November 1990.
M. KathrynShields
Seealso:Adams, Ansel; An American Place; Dye
Transfer; Film; Stieglitz, Alfred; Strand, PaulBiography
Born in Winnetka, Illinois, 6 December 1901. Attended New
Trier High School, Kenilworth, Illinois, 1918–1920; Mor-
ristown School, New Jersey, 1918–1920; Harvard Univer-
sity, School of Engineering, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1920–1924, B. S. 1924; Harvard Medical School, 1924–
1929, M. D., 1929; advanced study of biochemistry, Uni-
versity of Cambridge, England, 1926; self-taught in
photography. Instructor and researcher in Biochemistry
and Bacteriology, Harvard University and Radcliffe Col-
lege, Cambridge, 1929–1939. Married Marian Brown,
1926 (divorced 1934). Married Aline Kilham, in 1936.
Freelance photographer, Cambridge, 1939–1942; war
work on radar development, Radiation Laboratory, Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1942–
1944;. Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Club, San
Francisco, 1965–1971. Recipient: Guggenheim Fellow-
ship, 1941, 1946; Silver Plaque: Wildlife Photography
Award,Country Life International Exhibition,London,
1950; Conservation Service Award, United States Depart-
ment of the Interior, 1967; Distinguished Son of Maine
Award, 1969; Associate Fellow, Morse College, Yale
University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1967; Fellow,
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1971. Honorary
Degrees: D.F.A., Colby College, Waterville, Maine, 1969;
LL.D., University of Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1974;
D.Sc., Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1979.
Died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2 November 1990.Individual Exhibitions
1936 Exhibition of Photographs by Eliot Porter; Delphic
Studios, New York, New York
1939 Eliot Porter—Exhibition of Photographs; An American
Place, New York, New York
1940 Exhibition of Photographs by Eliot Porter; Museum of
New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1942 Photographs by Eliot Porter; Katherine Kuh Gallery,
Chicago, Illinois
1943 Birds in Color: Flashlight Photographs by Eliot Porter;
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, and
traveled to Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illi-
nois; Orchestral Hall, Boston, MassachusettsPORTER, ELIOT