(1915-2001)
African American important painter, printmaker, and art educator. Clark’s subject matter was African American culture, including dance scenes, street life, marine life, landscapes, and religious and political satire images executed primarily with a palette knife.
Claude Clark is a renown African American artist. He was a painter, printmaker and educator who focused on African American culture into much of his work as well as many picturesque landscapes and still-life paintings. His work encompassed social realism, modern and abstract styles and his creative contributions span almost eight decades.
Claude Clark was born November 11, 1915 in Rockingham, Georgia. His parents left the south in 1923 and traveled to Philadelphia. Clark eventually attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art on a four-year scholarship. He received a certificate in 1939 and then began to study at the Barnes Foundation School of Art. During this time, he worked as a printmaker. He had a brief stint as an instructor in a Philadelphia public school and then became the Chair of the Art Department at Talladega College in Alabama in 1948 where he helped to establish the art department.
In 1955, he left Talladega to pursue his bachelor’s degree at Sacramento State University and then later a Master’s degree at the University of California in Berkley. He became an art instructor at San Francisco State University and then later Merritt College. During his time at Merritt, he created a curriculum for African American culture, A Black Art Perspective: A Black Teacher’s Guide to a Black Visual Arts Curriculum.
Throughout his life, Clark encountered many instances of racial discrimination which only reinforced his resolve to focus on African American culture in his artwork. He used his personal life experiences and observations of culture as inspiration for his prints and paintings. After retiring from his position at Merrit in 1981, he continued to work on his art until his death in 2001.
Claude Clark embraced his African heritage in his art. His work featuring dance scenes, street scenes, landscapes and even satire images can be seen in collections at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of art and many others.
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