Porter studied art history at Harvard, but was mostly self-taught as a painter. That independence may be reflected in his devotion to representational art during the decades when abstract painting was dominant. Porter painted his personal world - family, friends, and the places he lived and visited. Here, his sister Nancy sits at the Family summer house on Great Spruce Island, Maine. Porter was strongly influenced by French painters Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, whose work also made the ordinary and everyday seem extraordinary.

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