In 1943, while stationed in Hawaii, White was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. Not long after his return, in February 1942, he had his first one-man museum exhibition at the Portland Art Museum, and in April he was drafted into the army. In 1941 he returned to Portland, having decided to establish a photography business there. In 1940 he was sent to La Grande, Oregon, to teach at the WPA art center, where he subsequently became its director. In 1938 he began teaching photography to young people at the local YMCA.
White was also active in theater circles, making photographs of actors and performances. His photographs were exhibited in 1939, and the exhibition toured various national WPA centers until 1942. In 1938 he became a creative photographer for the Works Progress Administration Art Program, documenting the historic nineteenth-century cast-iron facades and buildings that were being demolished along the Portland waterfront. In the summer of 1937 he left Minneapolis and settled in Portland, Oregon, where he began his photographic career, both as an artist and a teacher. Having learned the rudiments of technique by making photo-micrograph slides for the botany department, White took up photography seriously in 1937. George Martin, White’s grandfather, was an amateur photographer who gave him his first camera in 1915, as well as introduced him to early photographs and photographic processes. After taking some night courses, he graduated from the university in 1934. His employment allowed him the time to concentrate on writing poetry, his chief interest. When, in 1931, he failed to meet the degree requirements, he left the university and became a houseman at the University Club. It was at this time that White realized he was a homosexual, an aspect of his life that would come to be a prominent theme in his photography. He entered the University of Minnesota in 1927 and majored in botany, though he also took courses in literature and poetry. White attended the Minneapolis public schools, graduating from West High School in 1927 with distinction in science and literature. Minor White (July 9, 1908-June 24, 1976), photographer and teacher, was born Minor Martin White in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Charles Henry White and Florence May Martin. Finding aid written by Kate Kaluzny, January, 2019. This collection was processed by Taylor Barrett in June – August, 2018, and Kate Kaluzny, December – January, 2019.
PHOTOPRESS JOURNAL OF THE WEST ARCHIVE
The archive was bequeathed to Princeton University by Minor White upon his death in 1976. Offsite at the Forrestal storage facility. The Archive consists of more than 26,000 items, including photographic prints by White and by other artists, including students and friends.
The Minor White Archive, which entered the Princeton University Art Museum in 1976, is the most significant collection of primary source material by and about the artist. In a career spanning four decades, he became a key figure in shaping a distinctly modern American photographic style. Personal photographic archives, papers, manuscripts, library, audio and video recordings, teaching materials, and other miscellaneous documents and ephemera of Minor White (1908-1976), one of the most important photographic artists of the twentieth century. Linear Feet: ~300 linear feet Number of Containers: 218 boxes Minor White Archive, 1908-1976: Finding Aid MWA_finding_aid Princeton University Art Museum
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