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Claude Clark was born on a tenant farm in Rockingham, Georgia November 11, 1915. A painter, printmaker and art educator, Clark’s subject matter is woven from the tremendous diaspora of African American culture. It includes dance scenes, sheet urchins, marine life, landscapes, and religious and political satire images executed primarily with a palette knife.

Biography
In early August 1923, Clark’s parents became part of that great exodus of black people leaving the south for a better life in Philadelphia, PA during the Great Migration. Clark attended Roxbury High School and studied at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1935-1939) following high school graduation. Clark applied to and was eventually accepted to the distinguished Barnes Foundation in 1939.

Claude Clark was desperately searching for a job during the depression and heard the Artists' Union would provide jobs through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He contacted the union and worked with the WPA from 1939 – 1942. Clark joined the graphics art shop where he worked with Raymond Seth and Dox Thrash.

In 1941, Claude met Effie May Lockhart from California, daughter of an African Methodist Episcopal Church minister. They married in June 1943 and formed a dynamic “power” partnership in art, education and philosophy. He continued his paint studies at Barnes 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.

Clark was the subject of many articles and publications (see Publications). He also was the author of A Black Art Perspective, a Black Teachers Guide to a Black Visual Arts Curriculum, Merritt Press 1970. Clark was one of the pioneering members of the Black West Coast Arts Movement and co-developed the first African American Studies curriculum. He also mentored and supported many young emerging scholars and artists.

Education
Claude Clark attended high school in Philadelphia, PA graduating from Roxbury High School. From 1935-1939, Clark studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (later the Philadelphia Museum of Art on full scholarship. While studying there, Claude’s instructors introduced him to the techniques of Van Gogh in the handling of still life. The execution of this style formed the basis of his early approach to drawing and painting. Van Gogh and Cezanne’s influence can be felt in the thick creamy texture and loosely applied paint. The palette knife became his tool of choice and Clark’s deft handling has been his signature trademark.

In 1939, during The Great Depression, Clark applied to the distinguished Barnes Foundation. in Merion, Pennsylvania and was accepted. Clark studied at Barnes from 1939 – 1944. The Albert Barnes collection consisted of an array of works that included African art, European Impressionism and American art. He was able to investigate the hundreds of original “old masters” and modernist works and to study first hand one of the first important collections of African art in America.

While studying at Barnes in 1939, Clark’s job search network eventually led him to the Artists' Union which in turn found him a job through the Federal Arts Project of the Worker’s Progress Administration (WPA). Clark worked at the WPA from 1939 – 1942. He continued to study, paint, teach and exhibit. He also performed independent study from 1944 – 1958 while moving his family to Talladega, Alabama and subsequently Sacramento, California. He received a BA from Sacramento State University in 1958 and a Masters of Art from the University of California, Berkeley in 1962.

Career as an Painter and Art Educator
Claude Clark matured in art by recognizing his opportunity to develop without being constrained by the racism, poverty and inherent inequality of circumstance prejudice and labels bring. Clark defined his own future through resourcefulness and determination … always seeking the chance to learn from others. His work exhibited social realism, modern and abstract styles. When Clark could not afford paint, he salvaged throw away paint cans from the trash cans in the back of art schools and mixed his own. When Clark lacked the resources to buy paint brushes and chemicals to clean them, he mastered use of the palette knife. Necessity became the creative tool of invention throughout his career as a printer, painter and art educator.

Clark painted and exhibited from a very early age and sold his first works as a teenager while attending art college. Collectors continue to seek Clark’s works 70 years later. Clark worked at various jobs throughout the late 30’s and mid 40’s before accepting a position as an art instructor with Philadelphia Public school in 1945 – 1948.

Clark became interested in working for a Black college as his interest in African and African American history developed further. He accepted a position at Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama as an lecturer, Associate Professor of Art (1948 – 1955). 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.

In 1955, Clark began feeling the financial pressures of limited resources available at a historically black college/university at this time and made the decision to move his family to his wife’s native state of California. Clark enrolled in Sacramento State University and taught art classes to other students while simultaneously obtaining his Bachelors of Art 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). Clark continued to paint, research and exhibit throughout this period. Clark worked from his studio in Oakland, California following his Merritt College retirement from 1981 – 1998. He has exhibited throughout the Unites States and in Africa, Caribbean, Europe and South America.

Retrospective Sample Listing of Art Works

 * Nude in Classroom	1938
 * Drafting	1940
 * Three Men	1940
 * Freedom Morning	1941
 * Cradle of Liberty	1941
 * Play Off 1942
 * Hillside Landscape 1942
 * Poet II 1942
 * The Plow 1944
 * Good Samaritan 1946
 * Men and Cart 1948
 * Foy Cottage 1949
 * Coffee 1950
 * Intersection 1950
 * Growing Vanilla 1950
 * Growing Banana Bunch 1950
 * Experimental Station 1950
 * Growing Mangoes 1950
 * Milling Machine 1950
 * Dump Truck 1950
 * Windy Hill 1951
 * Above the Pass 1953
 * Tulips 1956
 * Worker's Quarters	1956
 * Red Buds 1957
 * Old Swayne Hill 1957
 * The Quarry 1957
 * Spring in New Castle 1957
 * Houseboat 1957
 * Above the Lake 1958
 * Boat on the Bayou 1961
 * Crucible 1961
 * Oakland Hillside 1962
 * Snowballs 1967
 * Bethlehem Lutheran Church	1970
 * Pay Dirt 1970
 * Construction Huddle 1970
 * Drilling the Tunnel 1970
 * Raising the Cross	1977
 * Making Fu Fu 1977
 * Yemanja 1990
 * Babaluaye	1990

Public Collections

 * National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
 * National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.
 * National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Dayton, OH
 * Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, LA
 * Apex Museum, Atlanta, GA
 * Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA
 * DuSable Museum, Chicago, IL
 * Fisk University, Nashville, TN
 * Hammonds House, Atlanta, GA
 * Hampton University Museum, Hampton Roads, VA
 * Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
 * M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
 * Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
 * Talladega College, Talladega, AL
 * Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.
 * St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO

Publications

 * Cederholm, Theresa Dickason, "Afro-American Artists: A Bio-Bibliographical Directory", Boston, MA: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1973.
 * "Directory of American Scholars". New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1951.
 * Dover, Cedric. "American Negro Art". Greenwich, CN: New York Graphic Society, 1960.
 * Driskell, David C. "The Other Side of Color: American Art in the Collection of Camille O. And William H. Cosby Jr." Rohnert Park, CA: Pomegranate Communications, Inc. 2001
 * Fine, Elsa Honig. "The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity". New York: Holt, Rienhart and Winston, Inc.1973 and Hacker Art Books, Inc.1982.
 * "International Directory of the Arts". Berlin SW61, Germany, 1965 and 1976
 * Irvine, Betty Jo, and Jane A. McCabe. "Fine Arts & The Black American". Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Summer 1969.
 * Ittman, John W. "Dox Thrash: An African American Master Printmaker Rediscovered". Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art and Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001
 * Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins St James "Guide to Black Artists", Thomas Rigg, ed. Detroit: St James Press in association with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black culture, 1997
 * Locke, Alain. "The Negro In Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art". Washington D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940.
 * Myers, Carl L., rd. Black Power in the Arts. Flint, Michigan: Flint Board of Education, 1970.
 * Patterson, Lindsay, comp and ed. "The Negro in Music and Art. International Library of Negro Life and History". New York: Publishers Company, Inc., 1967.
 * Swartz, Walter. "Directory of Afro-American Resources". New York: R.R. Bosker, 1970
 * Taha, Halima "Collecting African American Art". New York City: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1998.
 * The Art Gallery and the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland. "Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection". San Francisco: Pomegranate, 1998
 * Walker, Roslyn. "A Resource Guide to the Visual Arts of Afro-Americans". South Bend, Indiana: South Bend Community Corporation, 1971.

Selected Group Exhibitions

 * 2000, 20th Century African American Icons, Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA
 * 1997, A Visual Heritage 1945 to 1980: Bay Area African American Artists, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
 * 1996, Pro Arts, Oakland, CA
 * 1989, Black Printmakers and the WPA, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York
 * 1988, Master Art Exhibition (NCA), Salvador-Bahia. Brazil
 * 1986, Kenkeleba House, New York, NY
 * 1985, Two Centuries of Black American Art, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA
 * 1983-84, Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, CA
 * 1982, Grand Oak Gallery. Oakland, CA
 * 1976, Los Angeles (circuit)
 * 1975, Philadelphia (circuit)
 * 1968, New Perspectives in Black Art, Oakland Museum, Oakland, C A
 * 1953, Sorbonne, Paris, France
 * 1946, The Harmon Foundation, New York. NY
 * 1945, The Negro Artist Comes of Age, Albany Institute of History and Art, New York. NY
 * 1945, Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn, New York. NY
 * 1945, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
 * 1945, Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA
 * 1942-44, Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA
 * 1942, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
 * 1941-42, American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries, The Downtown Gallery, New York, NY
 * 1939-40, World's Fair, New York, NY

Awards

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