By Mary Schmidt-Campbell,
Exhibition catalogue of Ed Clark' first Museum Retrospective,
The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1980.
The paintings of Ed Clark have become a vital part of the development
of American abstract art. But his role is rarely mentioned, even though the
story of the development of The New York School has been told and retold many
times. In the years following World War II, a small group of artists weary
all the social realism of the WPA year began to explore the possibilities
of abstract art.
The names of those pioneers have become familiar in the annals
of American Art . . . If the artists are familiar, so too are the communities
they formed and the favored places they frequented: the Five Spot, the Cedar
Bar, the Club, Betty Parsons Gallery, the Kootz Gallery, and later, the Tenth
Street cooperative galleries . . . But always, the presence of Black American
artists have been ignored. Norman Lewis at The Club, Romare Bearden at the
Kootz Gallery, and Ed Clark at Brata, a Tenth Street cooperative. These artists
were known; their art was known; yet there is precious little trace of that
presence in historical surveys.
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