Untitled

Ed ClarkWW-1957-046799

1957·Oil on canvas and paper, on wood·116.9 × 139.7 cm (46 × 55 in.)

<p>A native of New Orleans, Ed Clark grew up in Chicago and spent the early 1950s in Paris, supported by a G.I. Bill scholarship. In Paris he turned emphatically toward abstraction: “It struck me that if I paint a person—no matter how I do it—it is a lie. The truth is in the physical brushstroke and the subject of the painting is the paint itself.”</p><p>After five years overseas, Clark moved to New York City, where in 1957 he began to show works often acknowledged as the first “shaped” paintings. Here collaged elements break the traditional rectangular limits of the canvas, carrying the dynamism of Clark’s brushstrokes into the spaces beyond.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1957
Medium: Oil on canvas and paper, on wood
Dimensions: 116.9 × 139.7 cm (46 × 55 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Ed Clark

Artist

Ed Clark

Painting

Ed Clark was an American abstract painter who worked with large gestural forms and bold color fields, often created through unconventional application methods including his signature use of the broom and squeegee. Active from the 1950s onward, his practice emerged alongside postwar abstraction in New York, where he developed a distinctive approach to mark-making that emphasized physical gesture and material experimentation. His work bridged gestural abstraction and color field painting, employing an expansive scale and dynamic compositional energy.

New York City

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