Walter Clark
American, 1848 - 1917
Walter Clark was born in 1848 in Brooklyn, N.Y and died in 1917, New York City
Clark spent three years studying engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before he traveled to Europe to study art and architecture in 1869. He journeyed on to India, China, and Japan, then settled briefly in Wyoming for a stint as a sheep rancher before returning to New York to continue his artistic training in earnest. He studied at the National Academy of Design under Lemuel Wilmarth and Jonathan Hartley, the son-in-law of the tonalist George Inness. Inness's influence became more direct in the early 1880s, when Clark had a studio in New York adjacent to that of the older artist.
By the 1890s, Clark was beginning to turn from tonalism toward Impressionism, probably as a result of working beside his friends John Twachtman, Edward Potthast, and Joseph R. DeCamp. During the summers, Walter Clark and his son Eliot (born 1883) painted in such artists' colonies as Cos Cob, Chadd's Ford, Gloucester, and Ogunquit, Maine. (Drawing on his personal familiarity with many of his father's friends, Eliot Clark would later write perceptive criticisms of the work of Twachtman, Hassam, Robinson, Weir, and others.)
Walter Clark was highly respected during his lifetime. He was a member of the National Academy, the Society of American Artists, and the Salmagundi Club. He received a silver medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, the Inness Gold Medal of the National Academy of Design in 1902, and a silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.
Further reading:
Monograph on Walter Clark and Eliot Clark,1980. Richard H. Love
Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton
By the 1890s, Clark was beginning to turn from tonalism toward Impressionism, probably as a result of working beside his friends John Twachtman, Edward Potthast, and Joseph R. DeCamp. During the summers, Walter Clark and his son Eliot (born 1883) painted in such artists' colonies as Cos Cob, Chadd's Ford, Gloucester, and Ogunquit, Maine. (Drawing on his personal familiarity with many of his father's friends, Eliot Clark would later write perceptive criticisms of the work of Twachtman, Hassam, Robinson, Weir, and others.)
Walter Clark was highly respected during his lifetime. He was a member of the National Academy, the Society of American Artists, and the Salmagundi Club. He received a silver medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, the Inness Gold Medal of the National Academy of Design in 1902, and a silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.
Further reading:
Monograph on Walter Clark and Eliot Clark,1980. Richard H. Love
Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton
