He was chair of Harvard University’s art history department, and was the first American scholar of Romanesque architecture to achieve international recognition.

Porter prepared at the Browning School in New York City, alongside classmate John D. Rockefeller Jr.

[4] After graduating fourth in his class at Yale that year,[5] he began a two-year study of architectural practice as a special student at Columbia University from 1904 to 1906.

[13] A New York Times article in October 1924 reported on the largest taxpayers in that city, with Arthur Kingsley Porter and his brother Louis listed therein.

The article revealed that Louis Hopkins Porter had paid more taxes in 1923 than the estate of John Jacob Astor IV, several Rockefeller family members, and the same amount as William Randolph Hearst.

In January 1916, he proposed giving the University $500,000 ($12 million in 2017 dollars) in order to establish a department of art history.

Porter laid out the very specific purposes for which the money was to be used[23] [t]o provide salaries for professors or instructors in the history of art in the academic department, as might be required.

Porter became frustrated at Yale's lack of openness to having a full department dedicated to the study of the history of art and architecture.

In 1918 he left Yale to lead architectural preservation efforts by the French government caused by war damage and was the only American invited to join said commission.

He was appointed to the newly established William Dorr Boardman Memorial Professorship of Fine Arts in January 1925.