Untitled (Cracked Watermelon)

Trained in New York and Paris, Porter was among the first Black American artists to exhibit his work nationally and the only one to specialize in still lifes. This is among his most ambitious paintings. The subject of the watermelon—cultivated by colonists in the Americas from an African gourd—is also significant. Porter chose to paint the fruit when it was increasingly and virulently stereotyped. By reclaiming it artistically, he challenged a common racist trope.