Lot 1005: Kate Freeman Clark (American/Mississippi,

Kate Freeman Clark (American/Mississippi, 1875-1957) "View of Farmers Working Near a Country Road, Shinnecock Hills", ca. 1895, oil on board, signed lower right "F. Clark", 35-1/2" x 44". Presented in its original molded and ribbed giltwood frame. Provenance: Descended in the family of the artist. Reference: Kathleen McClain Jenkins, "Summers of 96 - Shinnecock Revisited: The Inspiration of Kate Freeman Clark by William Merritt Chase", Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi, 1996; Cynthia Grant Tucker, "Kate Freeman Clark: A Painter Rediscovered", University Press of Mississippi, 1981. Note: Kate Freeman Clark was the daughter of Edward Clark, an attorney in Vicksburg, and Cary Freeman Clark, a descendant of the politically prominent Walthall family of Holly Springs. After her father's death in 1885, Kate and her mother lived in the Walthall family home, known as the "Freeman Place". In 1891, Cary Freeman Clark enrolled her daughter in the Gardiner Institute, a finishing school for girls, in order to broaden Kate's educational prospects. Exploring the art section of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago played a role in Kate's decision to pursue a career as an artist. She enrolled in the Arts Students League in New York where she studied under John H. Twachtman, attended watercolor classes taught by Irving Wiles and oil painting classes under William Merritt Chase, who would play an important role in her development as an artist. In 1896, for the first of six consecutive summers, Kate Freeman Clark attended Chase's outdoor painting classes at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. The location was perfect for an outdoor art school where the focus was "plein-air" painting, a term made famous by the French Barbizon painters of the mid-19th century. Her works exhibited a little of Chase's influence but she soon developed into her own style of bold brush strokes while maintaining a solidity of form and a skillful subtle use of color and light. The Shinnecock years were her most productive and happiest as she was one of Chase's favorite students. At the turn of the century, Clark began submitting her work to important exhibitions using the name "Freeman Clark" in order to hide her gender. For a period of over twenty years Clark had many works accepted into prestigious shows, including The Corcoran Gallery, The Carnegie Institute, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The National Academy of Design, and The New York School of Art. William Merritt Chase's death in 1916 and the changing mode of art, introduced by the New York Armory Show of Cubist paintings in 1913, took the heart out of her career, and after losing her grandmother in 1919 and her mother's passing in 1922, Kate Freeman Clark decided to give up painting and return to the Walthall home in Mississippi. Ms. Clark bequeathed to the city of Holly Springs, Mississippi, her family home, her entire collection of paintings and funds to build a museum, known today as The Kate Freeman Clark Gallery. New Orleans Auction Galleries would like to thank Mrs. Bea Green of the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery, Holly Springs, Mississippi for her assistance.