Eliot Candee Clark (1883-1980)
An American Impressionist encouraged by his artist father, Eliot Clark began working at a very early age – he presented his first work to the New York Water Color Club at age nine and to the National Academy of Design at thirteen. Clark traveled across Europe and to the Southern United States, where he exhibited at the Telfair Academy in Savannah, Georgia, and taught summer school classes in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Information courtesy of Neal Auction Company, February 2009.
As the son of painter Walter Clark, Eliot Candee Clark grew up surrounded and influenced by artists who were friends and colleagues of his father. George Inness’ studio was next door to his father’s studio and John Twatchman gave him private painting lessons. An accomplished artist in his own right, Eliot Clark traveled to the South in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and painted in Charleston and Savannah. In an Impressionistic style, Clark rendered beautiful en plein air views of the lush landscapes of Savannah.
Information courtesy of Neal Auction Company, December 2007.
Son of the American tonalist landscape painter Walter A. Clark (1848 to 1917), Eliot Clark’s art is a late example of Impressionism in the South. Influenced by his father and J. M. Whistler, Clark once wrote “As a child, I grew unconsciously in the association of artists, of studio talk and the smell of paint and turpentine.” Eliot traveled with his father and other landscape painters to summer art colonies where he met artists of such stature as Edward Potthast and John Henry Twachtman. Clark’s only formal instruction was a short two months at the Art Students League, New York, under Twachtman. Clark spent several winters in the Deep South (Charleston and Savannah) where he set up his easel and painted plein-air. Those enchanting southern scenes are considered to be his finest works.
Information courtesy of New Orleans Auction, January 2006.