Description
Alson S. Clark: Based on the biography of Alson Skinner Clark
Authors: Jean Stern and Medora Clark
Publication: Petersen Publishing Co., 1983
One of the best ways to understand an artist’s work is simply to read a biography that gives detailed, first-hand accounts of the important events in his life. Jean Stern is one of the leading authorities on Alson Clark (he also wrote the chapter on Clark in California Light and is director of the Irvine Museum) and his book is a straight-forward account of Clark’s life, very well researched, factual, and uncluttered with analysis, but detailed enough to provide substantial insight into the artist and his work. It is greatly enhanced by excerpts from his wife Medora’s memoirs of their peripatetic life together. Clark spent the second half of his career in Pasadena, however, like many other California painters he lived in many different places; he came from a well-to-do family from Chicago, trained there and in New York, lived and worked in France and on the East Coast for several years, and traveled widely before settling in California.