page_title: Claude Clark
section_title: Painter and art educator
hierarchical_section_title: Claude Clark / Painter and art educator
caption_attribution_description: English: "Guttersnipe" is an oil painting on wood panel done in 1942 by Claude Clark. It is part of the M H de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, CA
context_page_description: Claude Clark 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.
context_section_description: 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. His work exhibited social realism, modern and abstract styles. When Clark could not afford paint, he salvaged throw away paint cans from trash bins in the back of art schools and mixed his own. Unable to afford to buy paint brushes and chemicals to clean them, he mastered use of the palette knife.
  Clark painted and exhibited from a very early age and sold his first works in his early twenties. Collectors continue to seek Clark’s works 70 years later. Clark worked at various jobs throughout the late 1930s and mid 1940s 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 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, 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).
  Clark helped curate the first national African American exhibition at the Oakland Museum in 1967.
  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 in the United States, Africa, Caribbean, Europe and South America.
  He died in Oakland, California on April 21, 2001 after a long illness.
caption: "Guttersnipe" is an oil painting on wood panel done in 1942 by Claude Clark. It is part of the M H de Young Memorial Museum collection in San Francisco, CA
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:12:29 18:59:17", "Image ExifOffset": "2174", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "721", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "873", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}