Alson Clark

A landscape painter strongly influenced by the French Impressionists, Alson Skinner Clark spent much of his career traveling and living in foreign countries and then settled in Southern California where he became a plein-aire painter, art educator and muralist. From there, he also traveled extensively in Mexico and the Southwest. Alson Clark was born in Chicago to a prosperous family comfortably supported by the father's commodities business. He showed early art talent, which his family encouraged by enrolling him in evening classes at the Art Institute. They also took him on a two-year trip around the world where he gained much exposure to European art. Graduating from high school, he again enrolled at the Art Institute but unhappy with his teacher, he left after six months, and in 1896, went to New York to study with William Merritt Chase at the Art Students League. He also followed Chase to his own school, which opened shortly after, and enrolled in the Chase summer school of plein-aire painting at Shinnecock. In 1898, Alson Clark went to Paris where he was a student for several months at the Academie Carmen, whose director was James McNeill Whistler. Although Whistler was a difficult, demanding personality, Clark respected his teaching, stayed at the school until it closed, and ever acknowledged Whistler's influence on his Impressionist style. In 1901, Clark returned to America and married Atta Medora McMullin, whom he met when she modeled for him at Comfort Island, near Watertown, New York, his family's vacation spot. From 1902 to 1914, they lived in Paris until the war broke out, and during that time, he took up plein-air painting. The couple also spent time at Giverny in 1910, and Clark painted with his friends Lawton Parker, Guy Rose, and Frederick Frieseke. Traveling extensively throughout Europe, the Clarks were supported by successful sales from galleries representing his work in New York and Chicago. Exhibition venues included the National Academy of Design, Pennsylvania Academy, Paris Salon and Art Institute of Chicago. His work included many landscapes, cityscapes, interiors, and figure studies especially of his wife, who continued to serve as his model.