1915-2001
Works in the Collection
Biography
Claude Clark was born in Rockingham, Georgia in 1915. In 1923, he and his family moved to Philadelphia, PA. From 1935-1939, Clark received a full scholarship to study at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (later the University of the Arts), and in 1939, he enrolled in classes at the Barnes Foundation where he studied until 1944. Clark worked for the WPA from 1939-1942 and married Effie May Lockhart in 1943. In 1948, the couple moved to Talladega College in Alabama where Clark was offered a position as Associate Professor of Art. He won a Carnegie Fellowship in 1950 which allowed him to spend the summers in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.
In 1955, Clark enrolled at Sacramento State University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1958. He then attended the University of California at Berkeley, earning his Master of Arts degree in 1962. A few years later in 1967, Clark helped curate the first national African American exhibition at the Oakland Museum. He began teaching at Merritt College in 1968 and would continue there until his retirement in 1981. In 1970, he published the book A Black Art Perspective, a Black Teachers Guide to a Black Visual Arts Curriculum with Merritt Press.
Throughout his career, Clark exhibited his work throughout the US, Paris, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. His work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the DuSable Museum, Hampton University Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Oakland Museum, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and the Library of Congress, among others. He died in 2001.