Firmly rooted in the artist’s experiences abroad, Black Daylight is a sumptuous example of Ed Clark’s unique Abstract Expressionist style painted by the artist in Paris. Clark first traveled to Paris in 1952 to study under Edouard Goerg at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Following this initial visit, he would later establish a second home for himself in the French capital in 1966, the same year he painted the present work. With thick layers of paint applied in quick, smooth gestures, Clark’s Black Daylight is an especially dynamic, early example from the artist’s celebrated oeuvre.
"It was the most famous city for an artist in the 1950s. I mean New York in that moment was not considered the capital of the art world—it was Paris. They were all alive, man! Picasso, Braque, both of them. Everybody was there!"
—Ed ClarkParis as an Intellectual and Creative Capital
Marking a major turning point in the artist’s career, Clark’s experience abroad was spotted with success and hardship. After his initial arrival to Paris in the 1950s, Clark’s work was included in several Salons across the city, as well as in solo exhibitions at the Galerie R. Creuze. Funding for his trip from the U.S. came largely from the G.I. Bill, which had also funded his education at the Art Institute of Chicago. After ten months in Paris, Clark said, “I didn't have any money, but I stayed. I starved over there, almost! But I was determined to stay there.”i Committed to his practice, Clark quickly met other artists and gallerists, including Sam Francis, Al Held and Jack Whitten. It was also in France where the artist would make his first known oval picture, The Big Egg, 1968, currently housed in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.
Ed Clark and The City in the courtyard at 22, rue Delambre. Artwork: © Ed Clark
"No matter what I do... there’s not a day that I’m not an artist."
—Ed ClarkThe composition in this painting boasts a combination of warm and cool colors, with bright orange, purple and green swept against a black and blue background resembling a late-night sky. Before introducing his push-broom technique, inspired by Jackson Pollock’s drips and Gerhard Richter’s squeegee, Ed Clark explored the possibilities of the conventional brush, creating paintings of gestural abstraction. Finding his own unique form of expressionism, Clark’s works are fundamentally intimate, humble and accessible to viewers. Long overlooked, he is now finally seen as a forefather of abstraction. As John Yau aptly said, “[Ed Clark] wanted to transform Pollock’s vision of materiality into [his] own — and, more importantly, [he] did so; [he] wanted to paint [himself] into a history that had excluded [him] on every level, from segregation to aesthetic hierarchies.”ii It wasn’t until he was 54 years old when Clark had his first museum retrospective at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1980. His works are now held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, and the Centro de Arte Moderno, Guadalajara, among others.i Ed Clark, quoted in “Edward Clark by Jack Whitten,” Bomb Magazine, June 2, 2014, online
ii John Yau, “Recognizing Ed Clark’s Contribution to Abstraction,” Hyperallergic, October 7, 2018, onlineProvenance
Shirley Robinson (the artist's sister, acquired directly from the artist in 1966)
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
New York, Karma; Los Angeles, Parker Gallery, The De Luxe Show, August 12–September 25, 2021
Literature
Jeff Edwards, Ed Clark. Le Mouvement: The Retrospective, exh. cat., N'Namdi Contemporary, Miami, 2013, p. 35 (illustrated)
Artist Biography
Ed Clark
American • 1926 - 2019
Born in pre-Civil Rights era New Orleans, Clark joined the Air Force at age 17 and served in Guam during World War II. Afterwards, he utilized the GI Bill by enrolling in the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and later the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Perceiving that his race would impact the future of his career less in France than in the United States – he noted that “The French never put race on ID cards”– Clark decided to reside in Paris even after the expiration of his GI bill before settling in New York in the late 1950s.
Though associated with Abstract Expressionism, Ed Clark continuously and audaciously transformed his artistic language over a career spanning six decades. His experiments with color, form, and shaped canvas are a testament to his restless inventiveness, a quality inspired by the cultures of the many places he’s resided in and traveled to, including New York, Paris, Morocco, Brazil, Greece, Yucatan, Martinique, Nigeria, and China. From his figurative works to his egg-shaped abstract pieces, Clark has always imbued his art with a delicate balance of colorful energy and peaceful tranquility.
Property from an American Collection
107
Black Daylight
signed and dated "Clark 66" lower right; signed, titled, inscribed and dated "BLACK DAYLIGHT CLARK Paris 66" on the reverse
oil on canvas
32 x 39 in. (81.3 x 99.1 cm)
Painted in 1966.
Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $189,000
Annie Dolan
Specialist, Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session
New York Auction 16 November 2022
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