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The Eliot Porter collection holds approximately 2,600 work prints and six albums
assembled by the photographer to house his work. The work prints include approximately
200 dye transfer prints on small mounts relating to the artist's book projects "In
Wildness Is the Preservation of the World" and The Greek World. Porter may have used
these mounted prints for reference and reproduction. Approximately 1,050 unmounted dye
transfer prints present a cross-section of the artist's work, including both bird
studies and landscapes. Approximately 1,100 unmounted black-and-white prints cover a
variety of subjects too, with many presenting landscapes of the Southwest. The group
includes approximately 150 black-and-white reinterpretations of the artist's color
photographs. This section of the collection also holds approximately 100 proof prints
for Porter's portfolios. Many of these objects are 16-by-20-inch dye transfer prints.
The collection has six albums that Porter assembled early in his career. Two of the albums,
now disassembled for preservation purposes, hold production prints for the book "In Wildness
Is the Preservation of the World." A caption appended to each print offered
instruction to the printer about what colors to adjust or match. Other items include an
album designed, assembled, and hand-captioned by Porter in 1937 containing his best
photographs to date. Two albums have contact prints of black-and-white photographs of
birds, organized by genus and species. Another album houses an incomplete cross-section
of Porter's photographs of wood warblers. This category's prints and albums have not yet
been catalogued.
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