Ed
Clark
(1926-2019)
Untitled (NY Series)
2004; acrylic on canvas, 40 x 49-1/2 inches, signed, dated, titled verso; label verso from Parish Gallery, Washington, DC
Born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago, Ed Clark emerged as a pivotal voice in postwar abstraction, known for expansive color fields, shaped canvases, and an audacious sense of scale. After serving in the U.S. military from 1944 to 1946, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on the GI Bill (1947–51). In 1952 he moved to Paris to attend the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where a looser pedagogical climate and daily access to museums accelerated his shift toward abstraction. Encounters with the work of Nicolas de Staël, poised between hard-edge structure and gestural sweep, helped steer Clark toward larger formats and bolder surfaces. He exhibited in 1953 at Galerie Craven in a survey of American artists working in France.
Returning to New York, Clark had a solo show at the artist-run Brata Gallery in 1957 and continued exhibiting there through 1959. As Pop Art rose in the 1960s, his brand of abstraction received less attention in the U.S., prompting renewed periods in Paris; a one-person exhibition at Galerie Creuze followed in 1966. In the same decade, he began using a push broom to drive paint across canvases laid on the floor, an innovation that produced sweeping, horizon-scale strokes. Clark would go on to develop elliptical formats, shaped supports, and draped canvases, all aimed at freeing the image from the strict rectangle. Early exposure to Monet’s Water Lilies left a lasting imprint on his approach to light, color, and immersive scale.
Ed Clark Papers; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Clark and Adger Cowans
Yucatan Series
1976-1977; color intaglio relief print on Arches paper, 21-1/2 x 28 inches, full margins, edition of 12
Printed by Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop, New York
Yucatan Series
1976; color intaglio relief on Arches paper, 22 x 27-1/4 inches, signed, dated, titled; dedicated To Bob, with A/P
Printed by Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop, New York
Selected Solo
Exhibitions
1951 YMCA, Chicago, IL (first solo)
1956 Clark: Peintures; Galerie Creuze, Paris, FR
1966 Clark; Galerie Creuze, Paris FR
1969 American Embassy, Paris FR
1972 Lehman College Art Gallery, CUNY, Bronx, NY
1974 Ed Clark: New Paintings and Drawings; South Houston Gallery, NY
1976. Sullivant Gallery, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
1977 Peg Alston Arts, NY
1980 Edward Clark: A Complex Identity; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
1981 Edward Clark: Martinique Interlude, Paintings and Pastels, Randall Gallery, NY
1988 Ed Clark: Bahia Series, Manhattan East Gallery of Fine Arts, NY
1990 Spiral Gallery, NY
1998 Edward Clark: From Sicily to Egypt; Cinque Gallery, NY
2001. Ed Clark: Mexican Series, Peg Alston Fine Art, NY
2004 Edward Clark: Paris and New York: Works on Small Canvas, Parish Gallery, Washington, D.C.
2013 Art Institute of Chicago, IL
2016 N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI
2020 Ed Clark. Expanding the Image, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, CA
2024 Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
2025 Ed Clark. Paint is the Subject, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich, Switzerland
Selected Group
Exhibitions
1952. Société du Salon d’Automne, Paris, FR
1956 Salon des Indépendants, Paris, FR
1969 Trois Noirs USA; American Center for Artists, Paris, FR
1970 Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
1971 De Luxe Show; De Luxe Movie Theater in the 5th Ward, Houston, TX
1973 1973 Biennial Exhibition; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
1978. Contextures; Just Above Midtown, NY
1980. Afro-American Abstraction; P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, Long Island, NY
1981 5+5: Artists Introduce Artists; Just Above Midtown, NY
1996 Explorations in the City of Light: African-American Artists in Paris 1945-1965; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY (traveling)
2006 Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964–1980; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY
2010 African American Abstract Masters; Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NY
2013. 50 Years of Abstraction; N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI
2019 Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power; Tate Modern, UK (traveling)
2022 Ed Clark and Stanley Whitney: On the Path; Hauser & Wirth, Southampton, NY
2025. Paris Noir. Artistic Movements and Anticolonial Struggles, 1950–2000; Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR