Allan Hugh Clarke - Artist - 1919-1979

"Did He Who Made the Lamb Make Thee?"

Linocut by Allan Hugh Clarke, 1946

ALLAN HUGH CLARKE
Record Changer #7 - 1954
Oil on canvas - 51 x 38 in.

"Promised Land" - watercolor - private collection

Allan Hugh Clarke - 1950

Record Changer Series - Oil on Canvas

Allan Hugh Clarke - 1954

Artist Allan Hugh Clarke was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 2, 1919, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Steadman Clarke, Sr. (Nellie E.) and was raised in New Kensington / Brackenridge, PA, along with his siblings Harriet and Gerald S. "Terry" Clarke (another child, Terry's twin, died in infancy). He was a student at Carnegie Institute of Technology before entering the army in August 1942. Resuming his studies there at the end of World War II, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Tech in 1947.
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During World War II, Clarke was a member of the 453rd unit as a tail gunner on the B-24 liberator, “Jughead”. For participation in six bombing missions over enemy Europe, Staff Sgt. Allan Clarke was awarded the Air Medal. He used his off-duty hours to draw and paint the people and activities of the unit. A photo of Clarke with his plane and the crew is shown below:

Photo of the men of the "Jughead" - Clarke is in the front row,

third from the right (Courtesy of Thomas A. Fahey, Jr.)

Upon graduation from Carnegie Tech, Clarke served as instructor on the arts faculty of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Among the work he exhibited at that time was a watercolor titled “The Cut Glass Bowl” (1948), which Director Carlton V. Earle described as “vibrant with intense mystic quality”. Some of his paintings were entered in the Terry National Art Exhibit at Miami, Florida.

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Clarke taught at the University of New Hampshire on the fine arts faculty when George Thomas (1906-1988) was the head of the art department there. Clarke and Thomas were friends as well as academic colleagues. At the University of New Hampshire, Clarke taught courses in Elementary Drawing and Design, Fundamental Forms, Lettering, Block Printing and Color, Advanced Drawing and Design, Advanced Painting, Renaissance Art, and Modern Western Art. As a reminder of his time there, the University of New Hampshire has a work by Clarke in its collection, titled "Mid-Summer Still Life" (1949).

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Thereafter until the time of his death, he resided in Manhattan. He taught at Pratt Institute. Clarke had a one-man show at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan shortly after it opened, in the early 1950s. He also had a one man show at the Feigl Gallery, Manhattan, of his oils and gouaches in September 1950 (exhibition held Sept. 26-Oct. 11, 1950; exhibition catalog is in the collection of The Frick Museum). Artists such as Kokoschka, Rouault, Soutine, Utrillo, Vuillard, and Marc Chagall were also being exhibited at the Feigl Gallery around that time.
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In May of 1954, paintings by Andy Warhol and by Allan Hugh Clarke were displayed at the Loft Gallery, in Manhattan. The two were friends and fellow classmates at Carnegie Tech. His work was also displayed at the Zabriskie Gallery; November 5-24, 1956. That exhibition drew the notice of and an article in "The New York Times" on November 6, 1956, entitled: "Allan Clarke's Abstractions Reflect the City". One notice said: "This exhibition charts the movement of a firm and talented painter within the past three years from rhythmic, geometric landscapes and shifting planes to a more abstract style in which color-shapes, particularly spiral groupings, are superimposed upon prepared surfaces suggesting spiral depths and contrasts of light and dark. (Zabriskie Nov. 5-21)". In a statement accompanying his exhibition at the Zabriskie Gallery, Clarke explained that in his latest abstractions he was trying to find some painterly counterpart to the aesthetic excitement he found in the man-made forms of the city.
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Earlier that year (September 17 - October 13) Clarke's work was part of a group exhibit at the Zabriskie Gallery that also included Pat Adams, Robert Conover, Edmund Casarella, and Lester Johnson, the success of which led to that one man show.
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Here are several quotes from reviews of shows that included his work in 1953 at the Loft Gallery: "At the Loft Gallery, a new exhibition area, a group of new names makes its appearance. Wolfgang Beck, Allan Hugh Clarke, Vito Giallo, Gillian Jagger, Edward Rager, Andy Warhol, and Jacques B. Willaumez" ... "Allan Hugh Clarke who teaches at Pratt Institute displays a deft and tricky technique in a number of canvases which appear to have come right off a production line, polished and slick and vacant." (Art Digest, Volume 28, 1953, pages 18 & 20).
The Loft Gallery's Opening Exhibition Announcement is shown above. About that initial exhibit of Andy Warhol's art, and the art of his artist friends, the New York Times said (on April 14, 1954): "Seven young painters have collaborated in the establishment of a new gallery at 302 East Forty-fifth Street that, for reasons which will become apparent to the visitor, has been christened the Loft Gallery." The rest, as they say, is history.

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Clarke’s mid-century modern art might be described as cubistic, or dynamic abstraction, or abstract expressionism. He is noted for a series of paintings of horses, a series based on the forms of record players (examples of which are shown in this post and in the post below), and abstract landscapes. Clarke made all of his own frames for his paintings—he worked in both oils and watercolors and is known to have produced linocuts as well (see above).

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Correspondence, gallery show catalogues, and other materials pertaining to Clarke may be found in the following archives: The Liturgical Arts Society at The University of Notre Dame, The Pittsburgh Artists File at The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, The Frick Museum, The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers of The Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum and Library Archives, the Hans Hoffman Papers at the Archives of American Art, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Clarke died in New York in October of 1979.

I am pleased to note that there are several people who have commented on the duplicate biography I shared with the website Ask/Art. I am going to share them here in the hope that more of a conversation can occur regarding his work.
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On 06/11/2011 Vito Giallo wrote this: "I was a friend of Alan's in the early 1950's I formed the Loft Gallery in 1953 on East 45th St. N.Y.C. Alan and Andy Warhol was part of the group of aprox. 10 artists that I exhibited, as well as my self."

On 03/16/2007 Zygfryd Dabrowski said: "Allan Hugh Clarke is one of the lost treasures of the New York art scene in the era of the abstract expressionist movement. It would be great to see some of his work surface so that he can be appreciated by the art world and the public."

If you have news to share about Clarke's work, I would be glad to hear from you. Allan Hugh Clarke was my uncle. I can recall my grandmother telling me that his paintings were for a time in storage, and that, unable to continue to pay for the storage, the owner of the storage company took possession of the art. One wonders where it is, today. Occasionally (very occasionally) I see something by him advertised on line, as indicated by this post.
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(This is the most complete biography of Allan Hugh Clarke that is readily available on-line. If you wish to have references concerning my research, or if you know of other works by Clarke, please contact me.)