.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The commanding brushstrokes of Ed Clark’s Untitled painting convey a sense of energetic urgency that cohesively aligns him with the greatest of the Abstract Expressionists. Large sweeps of thinly and thickly layered paint project into one another, resulting in a dramatic, yet perfectly balanced symphony of colors. As Clark composed his particular flavor of abstraction, he generated modes of working with paint that built on the work of his predecessors while contributing to new, but widely unacknowledged, developments in the realm of Abstract Expressionism. Painted within the same year as the acclaimed Winter Bitch (collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), this work from 1959 exists at a vital crossroad in the artist’s oeuvre, establishing the basis for his distinctive style of painting.
Clark first attended the Art Institute of Chicago before spending the formative years of his artistic career in Paris. The artist’s time in Paris proved to be extremely fruitful, enabling him to fully explore his potential in an environment that was far more receptive to the achievements of Black artists than the heavily segregated Chicago. During this period, he gained exposure to renowned modernists, such as Nicolas de Staël’s, whose influence was crucial and resulted in a complete alteration of Clark’s treatment of space. Clark also experimented with painting with his hands and then larger brushes A few years later in 1956, he discovered what would become his characteristic tool: the push broom. While Clark was not the first artist to utilize brooms in the process of painting, he was the first to incorporate this specific type of broom. This discovery enabled the forceful flow of paint in a singular direction, which became fundamental to his style. The artist emphasized the power the broom gave him, mentioning “You have to want that straight stroke. It’s like cutting through something really fast; that’s what…the push broom gives you, speed” (E. Clark, quoted in B. Cavaliere and G. R. N’Namdi, Edward Clark: For the Sake of the Search, Belleville Lake, 1997, p. 17).
Although a certain curvature exists within some of the strokes, one can feel the swiftness of Clark’s brushes and understand how the push broom paved the way for his transition into a new style of painting. While Untitled is the result of smaller brushes, explorations into new modes of paint application are apparent in the boldness with which the artist disperses color across the surface. Even the dashes of dark gray that comprise his signature effuse the speed that he deemed so vital to his practice. Clark has often highlighted that his works come to fruition through a sort of automatism. Within the present work, bright highlights of tangerine and white contrast against a background of black, creating a captivating and thrilling tension. Sheer dashes of pink, a color which later became one of the constants within his work, make a slight yet critical appearance, contributing to balance within the composition. A similar energy is mirrored in the artist’s treatment of the verso, as peach infused diagonal strokes cut across the roughened surface and grant a window into his intuitive process.
As an African-American working in abstraction, Ed Clark’s innovations are lesser known than that of his contemporaries and close friends, including Jackson Pollock and Joan Mitchell, but nonetheless greatly influential. He co-founded the Brata Gallery in 1957, showing what is believed to be the first modern American shaped canvas and establishing a basis for other forms of artistic ingenuity. Harnessing the latent potential of paint, Untitled exemplifies the ideals the Abstract Expressionists upheld and was undoubtedly a crucial exploration within the overarching movement.
Clark first attended the Art Institute of Chicago before spending the formative years of his artistic career in Paris. The artist’s time in Paris proved to be extremely fruitful, enabling him to fully explore his potential in an environment that was far more receptive to the achievements of Black artists than the heavily segregated Chicago. During this period, he gained exposure to renowned modernists, such as Nicolas de Staël’s, whose influence was crucial and resulted in a complete alteration of Clark’s treatment of space. Clark also experimented with painting with his hands and then larger brushes A few years later in 1956, he discovered what would become his characteristic tool: the push broom. While Clark was not the first artist to utilize brooms in the process of painting, he was the first to incorporate this specific type of broom. This discovery enabled the forceful flow of paint in a singular direction, which became fundamental to his style. The artist emphasized the power the broom gave him, mentioning “You have to want that straight stroke. It’s like cutting through something really fast; that’s what…the push broom gives you, speed” (E. Clark, quoted in B. Cavaliere and G. R. N’Namdi, Edward Clark: For the Sake of the Search, Belleville Lake, 1997, p. 17).
Although a certain curvature exists within some of the strokes, one can feel the swiftness of Clark’s brushes and understand how the push broom paved the way for his transition into a new style of painting. While Untitled is the result of smaller brushes, explorations into new modes of paint application are apparent in the boldness with which the artist disperses color across the surface. Even the dashes of dark gray that comprise his signature effuse the speed that he deemed so vital to his practice. Clark has often highlighted that his works come to fruition through a sort of automatism. Within the present work, bright highlights of tangerine and white contrast against a background of black, creating a captivating and thrilling tension. Sheer dashes of pink, a color which later became one of the constants within his work, make a slight yet critical appearance, contributing to balance within the composition. A similar energy is mirrored in the artist’s treatment of the verso, as peach infused diagonal strokes cut across the roughened surface and grant a window into his intuitive process.
As an African-American working in abstraction, Ed Clark’s innovations are lesser known than that of his contemporaries and close friends, including Jackson Pollock and Joan Mitchell, but nonetheless greatly influential. He co-founded the Brata Gallery in 1957, showing what is believed to be the first modern American shaped canvas and establishing a basis for other forms of artistic ingenuity. Harnessing the latent potential of paint, Untitled exemplifies the ideals the Abstract Expressionists upheld and was undoubtedly a crucial exploration within the overarching movement.