Biography
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1908
Minor Martin White is born on July 9 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
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1915
George Martin, White’s grandfather and an amateur photographer, gives him a Brownie camera
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1918
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1924
Martin gives White a carbon arc projector and hundreds of commercial slides of historical and travel photographs
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1927
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1934
Graduates from the University of Minnesota with a degree in botany and English
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1936
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1937
Begins using an Argus C3 35mm camera and photographs a trip to Lake Superior with friends
Moves to Portland, Oregon, and lives at the YMCA while working as a night clerk at the Beverly Hotel
Works for a photo printer in order to fund purchases of photography equipment
Begins regularly reading photography books
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1938
Starts a camera club at the YMCA and sets up a gallery and darkroom
Sees original pictorialist photographs at the camera club
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1940
Continues photographing in Portland until June, when he moves to eastern Oregon to teach photography at the La Grande Art Center (a WPA center)
Begins photographing landscapes in eastern Oregon using a 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 Speed Graphic as a view camera
Completes his first article on photography, “When Is Photography Creative?” (published in 1943 in American Photography)
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1941
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1942
First solo exhibition at the Portland Art Museum
Commissioned by the Portland Art Museum to photograph the Jacobs-Dolph and Knapp-Lindley mansions
April: he is drafted into the United States Army (24th Infantry Division) and leaves most of his Portland negatives with the Oregon Historical Society before deploying to O’ahu, Hawaii, in May
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1943
Photographs enlisted men and officers
July: he is deployed to Camp Caves, near Rockhampton, Australia
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1944
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1945
He is awarded the Bronze Star and is discharged at Fort Louis, Washington, after leaving the Philippines
Travels to New York and enrolls in Columbia University’s Extension Division, where he lives in a residence hotel at 628 West 114th Street (now River Hall, Columbia University)
Becomes close friends with the photography curators Beaumont and Nancy Newhall through the Museum of Modern Art, where he is hired as a photographer and where Beaumont is also employed
Begins photographing facades in New York City
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1946
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1947
Assumes teaching position from Ansel Adams and develops a three-year photographic program at the California School of Fine Arts
Photographs landscapes in the vicinity of San Francisco
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1949
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1950
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1951
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1952
Cofounds Aperture magazine and becomes production manager and editor; the first issue debuts in April
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1953
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1954
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1955
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1956
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1957
Commissioned by William H. Gratwick III to photograph peonies and other plants at Linwood, the Gratwick home in Pavilion, New York
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1958
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1959
Acquires a Leica 35mm camera for color photography
Purchases a used Chevrolet van and equips it for camping and photography
In his first trip across the United States, photographs Oregon, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and South Dakota. He continues his summer trips west until 1967
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1961
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1962
Cofounds the Society for Photographic Education
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1964
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1965
Moves to the Boston area and purchases a large home at 203 Park Avenue, Arlington
Begins teaching photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a visiting professor in the School of Architecture and Planning
Photographs Maine, where he will return regularly in coming years
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1966
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1967
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1968
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1969
Receives tenure at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Photographs the city of Boston
David H. McAlpin, Princeton University Class of 1920 and advocate for photography at Princeton, invites him to campus to give the annual Alfred Stieglitz Memorial Photography Lecture; White’s lecture is titled “Photography and Inner Growth”
Princeton University Art Museum acquires his sequence Sound of One Hand
November: Publishes Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations
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1970
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1971
Continues to photograph Massachusetts
Assists in the founding of Imageworks, a school of photography in Boston
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1972
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1973
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1974
Visits Europe for the first time and photographs Rome with students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Spends the summer photographing cities in Peru
Continues to photograph the city of Boston
Continues to photograph Maine
Retires from the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peter Bunnell invites him to teach a one-day seminar at Princeton University
Edits his final issue of Aperture and is hereafter credited as Founding Editor
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1975
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1976
Photographs solely with a Polaroid SX-70 and spends much of his time reading
Dies from a second heart attack on June 24 and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Bequeaths his personal photographic archives, papers, library, and collection of original photographs—his own and those by others—to Princeton University