The papers of African American abstract expressionist painter Ed Clark measure 8.9 linear feet and date from 1923 to 2017. The collection documents Clark's work as a professional artist through biographical material; correspondence with family, galleries, and friends, most notably Cinque Gallery, Herbert Gentry, Bill Hutson, and Ted Joans; writings, including documentation for the book Edward Clark: For the Sake of the Search; personal business records, including consignment and sales records; and material related to professional activities, including files on significant exhibitions and projects, gallery files, and teaching records. Also in the collection are exhibition announcements, catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material documenting Clark's work; photographic material depicting Ed Clark, his artwork, and other individuals; and a small amount of original artwork by Clark and others.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of African American abstract expressionist painter Ed Clark measure 8.9 linear feet and date from 1923 to 2017. The collection documents Clark's work as a professional artist through biographical material; correspondence with family, galleries, and friends, most notably Cinque Gallery, Herbert Gentry, Bill Hutson, and Ted Joans; writings, including documentation for the book Edward Clark: For the Sake of the Search; personal business records, including consignment and sales records; and material related to professional activities, including files on significant exhibitions and projects, gallery files, and teaching records. Also in the collection are exhibition announcements, catalogs, news clippings, and other printed material documenting Clark's work; photographic material depicting Ed Clark, his artwork, and other individuals; and a small amount of original artwork by Clark and others.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as eight series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1943-2016 (Boxes 1, 10; 0.5 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1926, circa 1943-2016 (Boxes 1-3; 2.1 linear feet)
Series 3: Writings, 1955, 1980-2006, 2015, undated (Boxes 3-4, 10; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1953, 1966-2015 (Boxes 4, 10; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 5: Professional Activities, circa 1954-2016 (Boxes 4-5, 10; 0.7 linear feet)
Series 6: Printed Material, 1923-1926, 1950-2017, undated (Boxes 5-8, 10, OV 11-14; 3.3 linear feet)
Series 7: Photographic Material, 1928, 1952-2014, undated (Boxes 8-9, 10; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 8: Artwork, 1977-1997, undated (Boxes 9-10, OV 14; 0.1 linear feet)
Biographical / Historical:
Ed Clark (1926- ) is an abstract expressionist painter who worked in Paris, France and New York. Clark was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1926. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1946 to 1951 and enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumièré in Paris after his arrival there in 1952. After his return to the United States, Clark became a charter member of the Brata Gallery. In 1957 he premiered his shaped canvas at the Brata Gallery Christmas group show. This shaped canvas is generally considered to be the first of its kind. In 1958, he began using a push broom to apply broad strokes of color to canvases on his studio floor.
Ed Clark has received multiple awards and honors including the National Endowment for the Arts' Master Award (1972), the United States Congressional Achievement Award (1994), and the Art Institute of Chicago's Legends and Legacy Award (2013). He has exhibited widely and his work is held in many collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the California Afro-American Museum, the Centro de Arté Moderno in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Louisiana State University, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the New York Public Library Schomburg Center.
Related Materials:
A 30-minute documentary recording, Ed Clark: a brush with success (2007) produced by Mark Hammond and Charles Martin is available at the Anacostia Community Museum Library.
Provenance:
The Ed Clark papers were donated to the Archives of American Art by Melanca Clark, Ed Clark's daughter.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Use of archival audiovisual recordings and born-digital records with no duplicate copies requires advance notice.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
REEL N70-33: Correspondence with the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, the Guggenheim Foundation (John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation), letters, among them 2 concerning the death of Otto Botto; catalogs, photographs; and a scrapbook.
UNMICROFILMED: Biographical material; letters from galleries, museums, and others; sketchbooks and sketches; financial records; photographs of Sennhauser and photos, negatives and slides of works of art; an inventory of art works (3 x 5 card file); financial records; clippings, exhibition catalogs and announcements and other printed material.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter and designer; New York, N.Y. Born 1907 in Rorschah, Switzerland. Died 1978. Sennhauser was an abstract artist who began to explore non-objectivity as a mode of expression in the late 1930s. He joined the American Abstract Artists in 1945 and pursued that direction in his work until the late 1950s when he returned to representation. Trained at the Royal Academy in Venice, he immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1928 at age twenty-one. In New York he took up romantic urban street subjects, but while a student at the Cooper Union Art School his interests shifted to geometric forms. In 1943 he joined the staff of the Museum of Non-objective Painting as lecturer and preparator and his own inclinations towards abstraction were thereby reinforced.
Provenance:
Material on reel N70-33 was lent for microfilming 1970 by John Sennhauser. In 2002 an additonal 1.2 feet was donated by the John Sennhauser Trust.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Biographical material; personal and business correspondence, including correspondence with Francis V. O'Connor regarding her involvement with the WPA Federal Art Project; address books; draft of an unfinished autobiography and other published and unpublished writings; a transcript of an interview with Susan C. Larsen, dealing with American Abstract Artists; subject, teaching and exhibition files; photographs of Browne and her artwork; printed material on Browne and art in general; exhibition catalogs and announcements; and a manuscript of her 34-page article "Abstract Art and the W.P.A. in New York," commissioned by O'Connor, submitted to him in June 1969 and published in his THE NEW DEAL ART PROJECTS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MEMOIRS.
Also included are 2 untranscribed cassette tapes of a monologue of Browne concerning her husband Byron Browne and Sam Kootz.
Biographical / Historical:
Painter, art critic, and educator; New York, N.Y. Married painter Byron Browne.
Provenance:
Donated 1978-1979 by Rosalind Bengelsdorf Browne and her son, Stephen B. Browne.
Restrictions:
Use of requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Occupation:
Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Topic:
Women artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Art -- Study and teaching -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Painting, Abstract -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
