Potter started painting in the traditional modes of representation, specializing in still life and landscape. His work was shown in New York in the 1930s at the Marie Harriman Gallery.

 

He spent several of his formative years painting landscapes and portraits in the Southern Appalachia region, later studying painting in Paris with André Lhote from 1929 to 1931, and in New York with Walt Kuhn and with Thomas Hart Benton.During the 1940s, Potter's work was still mostly figurative, but increasingly showed deliberate avoidance of ordinary representation.