Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Charles Ethan Porter was a noted still life and floral painter of the 19th century. Floral painting in the United States was limited to a small cadre of artists at the time. Porter was active from 1865 to 1915, both in New York and Hartford. In 1869, he was one of the first African Americans to study at the National Academy in New York. He later settled in Hartford where he befriended his neighbor Mark Twain. Around 1881, after raising $1000 from auctioning his paintings, Porter moved to Paris. Correspondence establishes that Mark Twain supported his studies. He returned to Connecticut in 1884. Porter's paintings are in the collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Harry B. Henderson, Jr. and Romare Bearden, A History of African-American Artists, p. 112.
