Lot 246: Kate Freeman Clark (American/Mississippi,

Kate Freeman Clark (American/Mississippi, 1875-1957) "Cosmos", c. 1904-05, oil on canvas, signed "Freeman Clark" lower right, titled on label en verso from the 1905 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition, 26 in. x 30 in., in a period frame.

Note: Kate Freeman Clark was a privileged daughter of Southern aristocracy from Holly Springs, Miss. Born into one of Mississippi's prominent families, she was the only child of Cary Ann Freeman and Edward Clark, and the grandniece of Confederate General Edward Cary Walthall. When Kate was ten, her father passed away within a week of the family arriving in Washington, D.C., where he was to serve as the first assistant to newly appointed U.S. Senator Edward Cary Walthall, Kate's uncle. Cary Freeman Clark and her daughter returned to Holly Springs, where Kate spent her adolescence with her mother and grandmother at the Walthall family home, "Freeman Place." When she was sixteen, her mother decided to move them to New York City, where they would have greater cultural and social advantages. Kate attended finishing school at the Gardiner's Institute for two years and in the fall of 1895 enrolled at the Art Students League where she studied under John H. Twachtman and Irving R. Wiles, the latter who later wrote that Clark "would someday be considered one of America's best painters of landscape." Through Wiles she met William Merritt Chase, the painter and instructor who would have a profound influence over her successful development and career as an artist. From 1896 to 1902, Kate Freeman Clark studied with Chase at the New York School of Art in the winter and at his Shinnecock School of Art on Long Island in the summer. Art instruction at Shinnecock focused on the plein air painting that the French Impressionists had made popular. Influenced by Chase's spontaneous technique and dashing style, she soon became one of his most promising students and he commented to her mother that she was "one of the pupils he was proudest of". In 1902 came one of her greatest honors at Shinnecock. After the much-anticipated weekly Monday morning critiques by Chase, paintings of the same view of the same white-columned house by her and by the artist Rockwell Kent were chosen for the final round. Chase awarded Clark the weekly prize for he most original composition and asked to have the winning canvas for his personal collection. Likely inspired by the honor bestowed upon her by her master Chase, Clark painted a similar scene from a different angle. In return, he painted her portrait which he then presented to her (see inset photograph.) Cosmos, the work offered here and titled after the colorful flowers shown in full blown, depicts a long loggia with white columns and the same previously painted house in the background at left. The selection for the 1905 exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts indicates the recognition of a brilliant American Impressionist work with its beautiful rendering of sun dappled light on the white columns and soft but bright and colorful flowers. In a somewhat unusual turn for Southern women of her social standing, Clark began submitting her paintings to professional exhibitions. Using the name "Freeman Clark" in order to disguise her gender, she first showed her paintings at the National Academy of Des gn in 1904, and for the next fourteen years accumulated an impressive exhibition record with her works often afforded very favorable displays in the galleries. Her paintings were shown in the prestigious halls of the Boston Art Club, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the New York School of Art, the Society of American Artists, as well as numerous New York galleries. The greatest honor of her career came in 1915 when her work Climbers was one of sixty chosen out of over 900 entries to be included in the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. Sadly, less than a year later, her mentor William Merritt Chase died, dealing a blow from which Clark never recovered. Her final exhibition was in 1918 at the Men's City Club of New York. The death of her grandmother in 1919, followed by that of her mother in 1922, left Clark alone in New York City. She returned to the family home in Holly Springs in 1923 and left her more than 1,000 paintings in storage in New York. She never painted again and instead returned to the ways of her genteel Southern upbringing. Upon her death in 1957, she bequeathed to the town of Holly Springs all of her paintings and the funds to build the facility which is today the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery. Interestingly, despite Clark's willingness and drive to widely exhibit her work during her artistic career, she repeatedly refused to sell her paintings. Subsequently, very little is presently in private hands. The opportunity to acquire a painting by Kate Freeman Clark is indeed quite rare. Special Thanks to the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery, Holly Springs, MS. Open by appointment. Contact Ms. J. Fant, 662-551-4330 References: Black, Patti Carr, Art in Mississippi 1720-1980, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998, p. 132-135, 174 Jenkins, Kathleen McClain, Summers of '96-Shinnecock Revisited: The Inspiration of Kate Freeman Clark by William Merritt Chase, Laurel, Miss.: Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, 1996 Keyes, Donald, Impressionism and the South, Greenville, SC: Greenville County Museum of Art, 1988, p. 20-21 Tucker, Cynthia Grant, Kate Freeman Clark: A Painter Rediscovered, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1981