Claude Clark

Claude Clark (November 11, 1915 – April 21, 2001) was an American painter, printmaker and art educator. Clark's subject matter was the diaspora of African American culture, including dance scenes, street urchins, marine life, landscapes, and religious and political satire images executed primarily with a palette knife.

Early life

Claude Clark was born on a tenant farm in Rockingham, Georgia November 11, 1915. In early August 1923, Clark's parents left the south for a better life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the Great Migration. Clark attended Roxborough High School

Clark studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts (Philadelphia)), (1935–1939), following high school graduation. He applied to and was eventually accepted to the Barnes Foundation in 1939.

In 1941, Claude met the daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister, Effie May Lockhart from California. They married in June 1943 He continued his paint studies at The Barnes Foundation while teaching art in the Philadelphia Public School system during the early years of their marriage. The couple moved to Alabama and finally California while continuing their careers.

During the Great Depression Clark contacted the Artists Union for work through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He worked with the WPA from 1939 to 1942. Clark joined the graphics art shop where he worked with Raymond Steth and Dox Thrash.

Education

Claude Clark attended high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, graduating from Roxborough High School. From 1935 to 1939, Clark studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (later the University of the Arts) on full scholarship. While studying there, he came across the work of Van Gogh. Van Gogh's style and method formed the basis of Clark's approach to drawing and painting, with thick creamy texture and loosely applied paint using a palette knife. Clark painted, taught, exhibited and researched his interest further while supporting his family consisting of a wife Diama (Effie), son Claude Lockhart Clark and daughter Alice. “Freedom Morning” is a transparent watercolor done on paper in 1941 by Claude Clark. This painting was done in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is part of the .

In 1955, while teaching at Talladega, Clark began feeling the financial pressures and made the decision to move his family to his wife's native state of California to seek greater opportunity. Clark enrolled in Sacramento State University and taught art classes to other undergraduate students while simultaneously obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree. Following graduation in 1958, Clark accepted an art instruction position with Alameda County, California (1958–1967) and eventually secured a faculty position within the University of California system as an art instructor (Merritt College, 1968–1981). and the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.

Public collections Clark's work is in the collection of Howard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the de Young Museum.

Awards

Silver Medal, St. Nicholas League, 1933 Barnes Foundation Fellowship, 1942 Carnegie Fellowship, 1950