Fairfield Porter was born in Winnetka, Illinois in 1907, the son of a wealthy architect. He was taken to Europe as a child and exposed to the paintings of such masters as Titian and Veronese. He graduated from Harvard in 1928 and from 1928 to 1930 he studied Art History with Bernard Berenson. He began his art education in earnest at the Art Students League, where he studied with Boardman Robinson and Thomas Hart Benton. There were two turning points in Porter's artistic life: in 1936 when he met Willem de Kooning and in 1938 when he saw an exhibition of Vuillard and Bonnard in Chicago.

Porter was a nature painter but his nature is tame, sensuous, unthreatening and a comfortable container for the well-ordered and well-lived life. He p...