Minor White miscellaneous acquisitions collection

Minor White was born July 9, 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received his first camera in 1916. White studied botany at the University of Minnesota from 1928-1933. He then worked as a waiter from 1933-1937. In 1937, White moved to Portland, Oregon where he worked as an assistant in a photographic studio. A year later, White was an instructor in photography with the YMCA in Portland, was a member of the Camera Club of Oregon, and accepted a job as assistant secretary in the People’s Power League which helped him obtain the title of creative photographer for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He continued to teach photography for the next few years until joining the Army and serving in the Philippines from 1942-1945.

Upon returning from the Philippines, White studied the history of art and esthetics at Columbia University in New York and worked as a photographer at the Museum of Modern Art with Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. In 1946, White met Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, and Paul Strand, and become a lecturer at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. In 1952, White founded and directed the magazine, Aperture, with Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Barbara Morgan, and Beaumont and Nancy Newhall. In 1953, White created a long series of demonstrations titled “How to Read a Photograph.” From 1953-1957, he worked with the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY and was the editor of the magazine Image. By 1955, White moved from portrait photography to landscape photography. White continued to instruct photography throughout the rest of his life, and was a founder of the Society for Photographic Education. He died in Boston on June 24, 1976.