Clark Holmes McDougall

Clark McDougall (November21, 1921 August 17, 1980) was a Canadian painter known for his black enamel style.

Career Clark McDougall was born in St. Thomas, Ontario and lived and died in the house where he was born at 56 Inkerman Street. When he was 16, he left school, having decided to become an artist. He began by painting watercolour in nearby North Yarmouth. He was self-taught from library books and learned from artists such as the watercolourist in his hometown, William St. Thomas Smith, and Charles Burchfield, whom he visited in Buffalo, New York and who urged him to avoid art school since it would damage what he had as an artist. By 1952–1953, Clark was using ingredients of Fauvism in his work, such as its attention to bright colour.

In 1943, he had his first exhibition at Mellors Fine Art Gallery in Toronto. In 1945, he had an exhibition in New York, reviewed in ARTnews, which travelled to Buffalo and St. Thomas. His first exhibition of black enamel paintings was in 1968 at the 20/20 Gallery, London. In 1976, the Volunteer Committee at the London Regional Art Gallery (today Museum London) commissioned a painting, Site, to commemorate the building of the new gallery (now this work and the sketch in black-and-white are both in the collection of Museum London which has over 20 works by the artist). In 1977, the Vancouver Art Gallery organized an exhibition titled Clark McDougall: Paintings since 1953.