Carey Clarke

Carey Clarke (born 1936) is an Irish academic figurative painter, known for his landscapes, interiors, still lifes and portraits.

Biography Carey Clarke was born in Donegal in 1936 as the only child of Protestant, middle-class parents. He was educated at St Andrew's College in Dublin, and from 1954 to 1959 attended The National College of Art there, with further studies at the Salzburg Summer school of Fine Art under Emilio Vedova (1969), with Annigoni in Florence (1976–77)

He taught at the National College of Art and Design from 1959 to 1995, where his emphasis on painterly craft and observation had a profound influence on several generations of younger painters. Clarke was appointed to a full-time teaching position in 1968, and to the college's first Academic Council in 1969, ) has described how students "were almost forced" former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, former Lord Mayor of Dublin Michael Mulcahy,

Technique and aesthetic Whether working in oil paint, tempera, watercolour or graphite, Carey Clarke's work is always slowly and patiently constructed, his technique highly controlled and meticulous, aiming at realism and classical balance.

Critical appreciation Irish Times critic Aidan Dunne has describes Clarke as "one of the most popular and respected of Ireland's established academic artists, and deservedly so." Bruce Arnold declared him "a master of his craft and art, revered as a teacher, admired as a painter and loved as a friend." offers this evaluation of Carey Clarke's work and his position in the history of Irish art:"Carey Clarke follows his vision, and he will have a corpus of work that will transcend any decade, particularly as part of the continuity of that Orpen tradition, which was so derided even when I was at college ... I think there is a line going back to Ingres, from Orpen to Keating to Clarke, and on to the present generation such as myself. So there is a continuous line. I think he was holding that line when it was being most assaulted, and it was looking a hopeless cause." 1985 ESB Keating McLoughlin Medal

Solo exhibitions

1966 Molesworth Gallery, Dublin, Ireland