Alson Skinner Clark (1876-1949)
California Impressionist Painter
Part 1: 1900-1906
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"Alson Skinner Clark experienced three succinct phases in his career: as a well-known cosmopolitan painter associated with prominent dealers such as William Macbeth in New York and William O’Brien in Chicago, as an artist who witnessed and recorded the building of the Panama Canal in 1915, and as a muralist recovering from World War I in the warm climate of Southern California. “Nevertheless, throughout his prolific and extensive career, Clark always maintained his devotion to Impressionism – to painting en plein air – never abandoning his commitment to his work or his vision” (c)Deborah Epstein Solon, An American Impressionist: The Art and Life of Alson Skinner Clark ( Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills, 2005), 15.
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California Impressionist Painter
Alson Skinner Clark, a noted painter of vivid California landscapes, was born in Chicago. At the exceptionally young age of fourteen, he moved to New York where he enrolled at the Art Students League. Stifled by the highly disciplined course of study, he abandoned the League with a group of fellow students under the leadership of William Merritt Chase, who subsequently founded the Chase School of Art. As a student at the school, Clark was greatly influenced by Chase's masterful sense of composition, brushwork and color, and he incorporated it into his own distinctive style. At Chase's suggestion, Clark traveled to Paris in 1899, where he studied at the Académie Julian, and briefly under James A. McNeill Whistler, the well-known American expatriate painter.
Landscape near Le Pouldu, France,1900
Val de Grace Paris
In the spring of 1901, Clark's conservative, dark picture The Violinist was accepted at the Paris Salon, bringing him his first official commendation.
The Violinist,1901
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With this recognition in hand, Alson Skinner Clark returned to the United States in 1902, establishing his studio in Watertown, New York. Here he began to paint winter scenes of the surrounding countryside, a theme which he would come back to later in his career. His return to the United States was marked, in 1902, by a highly successful exhibition at the Anderson Gallery in Chicago, where nearly all of his forty-six European works on display were sold within a two-week period.
Mansion of Leroy de Chaumont near Watertown, New York,1902
The Black Race,1902
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In the Fog,1903
From Our Window, Paris,1903
The Artist's Kitchen, Paris,1903
A Breton Household,1903
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The Forest of Masts,1904
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Carson Pirie Scott Department Store,1905
Interior of our Apartment, 6 rue Victor Considerant,1905
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Another important Chicago show followed in 1905, this time composed mostly of Chicago cityscapes. Clark's The Coffee House won the Cahn Prize at the Art Institute and entered its permanent collection the same year. Among the many visitors to the show was Chase, who paid his former pupil the ultimate compliment of purchasing The Bridge builders for his own collection.
The Bridge Builders,1904
Winter Industrial Landscape on the Chicago River,1906
Pushing Through the Ice,1906
State Street Bridge Along the Chicago River,1906
The Coffee House,1906
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Pursuing his interest in winter scenes, Clark traveled to Quebec in the fall of 1906. Equipped with snowshoes and a charcoal burner built into a palette to keep his paintings from freezing, he ventured outdoors to capture the magical effects of northern light.
Winter, Canada,1906
Grey and Gold,1906
Toboggan Slide and Dufferin Terrace,1906
Winter in Quebec,1907
Other trips in search of exotic painting sites followed.
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Alson Skinner Clark-more artworks
*to be continued-продолжение следует...
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