Joseph Benwell Clark, self-portrait, 1889

Joseph Benwell Clark (185713 February 1938) was an English painter,

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

, engraver in

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonal ...

and

drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The ...

, and book illustrator. ''Victorian Painters'' describes Clark as a London painter of rustic subjects.

Early life

Born at

Cerne Abbas Cerne Abbas () is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies in the Dorset Council administrative area in the Cerne Valley in the Dorset Downs. The village lies just east of the A352 road north of Dor ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

, Clark was a son of William Henry Clark, linen draper, and his wife Christian Ann Benwell Ellisdon, and was baptized into the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

on 24 July 1857. His parents had married at

Haggerston Haggerston is a locale in East London, England, centred approximately on Great Cambridge Street (now renamed Queensbridge Road). It is within the London Borough of Hackney and is considered to be a part of London's East End. It is about 3.1 miles ...

, East London, in 1846, and both his grandfathers were drapers. His middle name, Benwell, came from his maternal grandmother, who was Sarah Lovelock Benwell before marrying William Ellisdon. Clark was a nephew of the painter and illustrator Joseph Clark (1834–1926), who was also a native of Cerne Abbas. The younger Clark later lived with his uncle in

Holloway, London Holloway is an inner-city district of the London Borough of Islington, north of Charing Cross, which follows the line of the Holloway Road ( A1). At the centre of Holloway is the Nag's Head commercial area which sits between the more residentia ...

,Joseph Benwell Clark (1857–1938), Artist
npg.org.uk, accessed 18 October 2020 while studying art at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, under Alphonse Legros, whose best pupil he was.Joseph Benwell Clark
at britishmuseum.org, accessed 3 October 2020 He thus got to know

William Strang William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of John Bunyan, Bunyan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge and Rudyard Kipling, Kipling. Early life Strang was bor ...

, another pupil,"STRANG, WILLIAM (1850– )", in ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'', Vol. 25 (1911)
text online
at

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...

and they and Charles Holroyd are the three of Legros's students mentioned in Arthur M. Hind's ''A History of Engraving and Etching''. While he was at the Slade, Clark also became a friend of

Henry Scott Tuke Henry Scott Tuke (12 June 1858 – 13 March 1929), was an English visual artist; primarily a painter, but also a photographer. His most notable work was in the Impressionist style, and he is best known for his paintings of nude boys and you ...

and the writer Samuel Butler. In April 1881, Clark was living with his parents, three brothers, and two sisters in Market Square, Cerne Abbas, and stated his occupation for that year's census as "Artist (Fine Arts)". Between 1881 and 1882, Clark and Tuke were art students in the

atelier An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or ...

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexa ...

in Paris. Clark's mother died in 1883.

Career

Clark began by making engravings after the paintings of his uncle and also exhibited work at the Royal Academy from 1880 to 1894. In July 1879, his etching of a work of

George Frederic Watts George Frederic Watts (23 February 1817, in London – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical work ...

, "The Three Goddesses", was reviewed favourably in ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', and the next year under the title "Pallas, Juno, & Venus" was printed in Paris in ''L'Art''. In 1884 his etching "The Dinner Hour" appeared in ''

The Art Journal ''The Art Journal'' was the most important British 19th-century magazine on art. It was founded in 1839 by Hodgson & Graves, print publishers, 6 Pall Mall, with the title ''Art Union Monthly Journal'' (or ''The Art Union''), the first issue of 7 ...

''. In 1889, work by Clark was included in J. S. Virtue's ''Fifty Choice Examples of Modern Etching'', a handsome

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

volume containing etchings by Legros, Whistler, Chattock, Macbeth, Foster, Haden, Herkomer, Hunter, Courtry, and others. In 1891, William Strang portrayed his friend Clark in an etching entitled "The Philosopher", as noted in the

1911 A notable ongoing event was the Comparison of the Amundsen and Scott Expeditions, race for the South Pole. Events January * January 1 – A decade after federation, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory ...

''. In 1894, a new translation of

Lucian of Samosata Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstiti ...

's ''

True History ''A True Story'' ( grc, Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, ''Alēthē diēgēmata''; or ), also translated as True History, is a long novella or short novel written in the second century AD by the Greek author Lucian of Samosata. The novel is a ...

'', with illustrations by

Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 187216 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His black ink drawings were influenced by Japanese woodcuts, and depicted the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the ...

, William Strang, and J. B. Clark, was privately printed in an edition of 251 copies. In 1895, Clark worked with Strang again to illustrate ''The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen'' and ''Sindbad the Sailor and Alibaba and the Forty Thieves'', an edition which has been called reminiscent of the structure of Chinese boxes. Clark spent most of his career in London, where as well as painting and engraving he taught. In April 1901, he was sharing rooms in King Henry's Road,

Primrose Hill Primrose Hill is a Grade II listed public park located north of Regent's Park in London, England, first opened to the public in 1842.Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) It was named after the natural hill in the centre of ...

, with two other artists, Richard W. Maddox and Vivian Paulfield, and a fourth artist, Valentine Havers-Morgan, was visiting them. At the time of the census of 1911, Clark was living alone at 19, King Henry's Road, and was Curator of the Schools at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House. He also had a studio at 22 King Henry’s Road,

Chalk Farm Chalk Farm is a small urban district of north London, lying immediately north of Camden Town, in the London Borough of Camden. History Manor of Rugmere Chalk Farm was originally known as the Manor of Rugmere, an estate that was mentioned ...

. In 1921, he retired from his position as Curator, and not long after that returned to live in his native Cerne, where he stayed with a brother and sister until his death in 1938. Clark died at Cerne Abbas on 13 February 1938 and was buried there, his address being stated as Barnwells. He left property valued at £5,916, , and probate was granted to John Henry Clark, draper, and Charles Frederick Fox FSA. C. F. Fox acquired Clark's self-portrait of 1889 and in 1954 bequeathed it to the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, which also has other paintings by Clark. A copy of his drypoint engraving of his master Legros is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Five of his illustrations for ''The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen'', drawn in Indian ink, are in the Prints and Drawings Study Room of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

.Artist/Maker: Clark, Joseph Benwell (artist)
vam.ac.uk, accessed 18 October 2020 Alphonse Legros by J. Benwell Clark.jpeg, Legros, by Clark, 1880 J. B. Clark, Dinner Hour.jpeg, "The Dinner Hour", 1884 Lucian's True History - ADORATION.png, From ''True History'' William Strang, etching of J. B. Clark (detail).jpg, Clark by Strang, c. 1915

Works illustrated

*"Ye Baron's Daughter and Ye Squire of Low Degree", a ballad illustrated by J. B. Clark and

Mason Jackson Mason Jackson (25 May 1819 – 28 December 1903) was an English wood engraver. Life Jackson was born at Ovingham, Northumberland in 1819, and was trained as a wood engraver by his brother, John Jackson, the author of a history of this art. In ...

, ''

Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication i ...

'' Christmas number, December 1890 * Lucian's ''

'', Greek text with illustrations by William Strang, J. B. Clark, and Aubrey Beardsley (limited edition, privately printed by Lawrence and Bullen, 1894) ** Lucian's ''True History'', translated by Francis Hickes, with introduction by

Charles Whibley Charles Whibley (9 December 1859 – 4 March 1930) was an English literary journalist and author. In literature and the arts, his views were progressive. He supported James Abbott McNeill Whistler (they had married sisters). He also recommended ...

, illustrations by William Strang, J. B. Clark, and Aubrey Beardsley (London:

A. H. Bullen Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, (9 February 1857, London – 29 February 1920, Stratford-on-Avon) was an English editor in chief, editor and publisher, a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature, and founder of the Shakespe ...

, 1902) *'' The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, illustrated by William Strang and J. B. Clark'' (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1895) *''Sindbad the Sailor and Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, illustrated by William Strang and J. B. Clark'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895; London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1896)

Notes

External links

''Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''
illustrated by William Strang and J. B. Clark, online in the

University of Florida Digital Collections The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC) comprise a ...

Tag: JB Clark
at johncoulthart.com
J. B. Clark no. 1
portrait by Clark of William Strang at nationalgalleries.org
Joseph Benwell Clark, The Dinner Hour
(etching published 1884) at

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

, art.famsf.org
Joseph Benwell Clark
at invaluable.com
J. B. Clark
portrait by William Strang at

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

Early life

Career

Works illustrated

Notes

External links

Further reading