$984
Eliot Porter (American, 1901-1990) Red Osier. Near Great Barrington, Massachusetts. April 18, 1957 , printed in 1981 in an edition of 300 for the portfolio ELIOT PORTER IN WILDERNESS . Signed "Eliot Porter" in pencil on the mount l.r., stamped on the reverse of the mount. Dye-transfer print, image/sheet size 16 x 12 5/8 in. (40.5 x 32.0 cm), unframed, presented with the original folder from the portfolio. Condition: Mounted, wear at l.r. corner of mount, minor soiling on folder. Provenance: Descended in the artist's family. N.B. At twelve years old, Eliot Porter's father gave him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie. As a young man, he studied medicine and eventually became a research biologist and professor, but photography and nature remained a constant in his life. Ansel Adams encouraged Porter to work with a large-format camera, and when his brother, painter Fairfield Porter, introduced him to Alfred Stieglitz, he shifted careers. While he was successful with his black and white work in the 1930s, it was the dye transfer work he began in the 1940s that was pioneering. In 1979, Intimate Landscapes , an exhibition of fifty-five works by Porter, was the first one-man showing of color photographs ever presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2015-05-29
