[1][3] In 1933, his prize winning painting, "Woman Holding A Jug," was selected for the Harmon Foundation Exhibition of Negro Artists.

[2] In 1935, Porter received a scholarship from the Institute of International Education and was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation grant that allowed him to study art in Europe.

[2] He returned to the United States where he attended New York University, graduating in 1937 with a master's degree in art history.

Porter's paintings and writing encouraged Americans to resist the urge upon traveling to Haiti and getting lost in the picturesque quality it holds on the surface.

"[7] While his paintings made in Haiti showcased the same characters as other artists at the time he surrounded this figures not with the bounty of an imagined tropical island but with urban debris.

[7] The representation of economic pressures and struggles that shaped the world of the Haitians he painted separates his work from other artists inspired by Haiti before him.

With a grant from the newspaper, the Evening Star, Porter traveled to South Africa in 1963 to study West African architecture.

[6] James A. Porter left a cultural and educational legacy to those passionately involved in the area of African American art.

[4] On February 25, 2010, Swann Galleries auctioned an immense archive of research material amassed by Porter; it consisted of photographs, letters, exhibit catalogues, art books, flyers, and bibliographical data on important African-American artists.

Acquired by Emory University, the papers include correspondence from virtually every major African-American artist from the 1920s forward: Romare Bearden, Lois Mailou Jones, Meta Fuller, Elizabeth Catlett, Hughie Lee-Smith, and many others.