He made many portraits of his friends including Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Eugène Labiche, Nina de Villard, Erik Satie, Joséphin Péladan, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt.
He was fascinated by the art of his French contemporaries, and especially by the paintings of "the father of French Symbolism" Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and by the work of Berthe Morisot.
Among the artists represented in his collection were Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Honoré Daumier, painters of the Barbizon school such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Antoine Chintreuil, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Alfred Sisley, Paul Gauguin and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
Other paintings owned or donated by Frank Porter Wood include artists such as: Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Lambert Sustris, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Maurice Utrillo, Claude Monet, Aelbert Cuyp, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Francesco Raibolini (known as Francia), Jacopo Comin (Tintoretto), Tiziano Vecelli, and Jacob van Ruisdael to mention only a few.