Kate Freeman Clark (September 3, 1875 – March 3, 1957) was an American painter born in
Holly Springs, Mississippi
Holly Springs is a city in, and the county seat of, Marshall County, Mississippi, United States, near the southern border of Tennessee. Near the Mississippi Delta, the area was developed by European Americans for cotton plantations and was dep ...
.
Clark was the daughter of Edward Clark, an attorney in
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856.
Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vic ...
, and Cary Freeman Clark, whose great-uncle was
Edward Cary Walthall. An only child, she was named for her grandmother, and was called "Little Kate" to distinguish her from "Mama Kate".
Soon after her birth her father purchased a plantation which would later become the centerpiece of the town of
Cary
Cary may refer to:
Places
;United States
* Cary, Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolitan area
* Cary, Indiana, part of the Indianapolis metropolitan area
* Cary, Miami County, Indiana
* Cary, Maine
* Cary, Mississippi
* Cary, North Carolina ...
, named for his wife. Kate and her mother summered in Holly Springs, where the air was considered cleaner than along the
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo ...
, and Edward would write his daughter long letters during these absences.
Edward Clark died of pneumonia in 1885, soon after being named assistant to
L. Q. C. Lamar, Edward Walthall's former law partner who had been named
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
's
Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to:
* Secretary of the Interior (Mexico)
* Interior Secretary of Pakistan
* Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines)
* United States Secretary of the Interior
See also
*Interior ministry ...
.
At his death Kate and her mother moved to Freeman Place in Holly Springs, which had been the Walthall family residence.
The family soon moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
where Kate attended finishing school at the Gardiner School, from which she graduated in 1891.
In 1893 the two went to the
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordi ...
in Chicago, which fired in the young woman a passion for art.
Upon returning to New York City, she enrolled in the
Art Students League
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...
in 1894; there she studied drawing with
John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impr ...
and watercolor with
Irving Ramsay Wiles
Irving Ramsey Wiles (April 8, 1861 – July 29, 1948) was an American artist, born in Utica, New York.
In the early 20th century, Wiles was a popular exponent of American grand manner portraiture as redefined by the work of John Singer Sargent, ...
.
It was Wiles who introduced her to
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...
, who would teach her still-life and plein air painting and would serve as her mentor until his death in 1916.
The tidy watercolor medium was often used by women at the era, but upon witnessing Chase paint in oil while outfitted in a white flannel suit, Clark took up his favored medium.
Chase respected her work highly, choosing two of her paintings for his personal collection.
Clark and her mother summered on eastern
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
during the late 1890s; Cary also traveled to Washington, D.C. for the social season there in 1896, in which year Kate attended classes at the
Corcoran School of Art
The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (known as the Corcoran School or CSAD) is the professional art school of the George Washington University, in Washington, DC.Peggy McGloneUniversity names first director of Corcoran School of the Arts and ...
.
She also attended the
New York School of Art
Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...
and the
Shinnecock School of Art; she would remain in New York for the winters while traveling to resort areas in
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
and
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
in summers.
Clark took to signing her works with "Freeman Clark" or "K. Freeman Clark" so that her gender was not immediately apparent.
She began exhibiting, showing her work at the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
in 1905.
Further exhibitions followed, at the
Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the
Corcoran Gallery of Art
The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University.
Overview
The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
in Washington, D.C., the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative.
The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of ...](_blank)
in New York.
She was the subject of a number of one-woman shows, and spoke to the
Macbeth Gallery
The Macbeth Gallery was an art gallery in New York City that was the first to specialize in American art. Founded by William Macbeth in 1892, the gallery gained notoriety in 1908 when it put on an exhibition protesting the restrictive policies and ...
to discuss selling her paintings through them.
Clark had returned to Mississippi sporadically over her career to attend to family obligations, but she spent the bulk of her artistic life in New York; only two paintings on Mississippi subjects are known to exist.
However, in 1924, after over 20 years in New York Clark returned to Mississippi and her southern roots, leaving the art world behind forever.
Her reasons are unknown, but it has been speculated that the death of her mentor Chase in 1916, followed by that of her grandmother in 1919 and her mother in 1922, was a blow from which she never recovered.
Chase's death especially seems to have hit her hard; she was pained that she could not attend the auction of his studio effects in time to purchase some memento of him, most especially an old, black kettle which he had painted numerous times and which was sold for seven dollars to somebody else.
Clark also appears to have foreseen the rise in modernism which followed the
Armory Show
The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
.
Her family is known to have been against her career, and warned her against operating, as her uncle Russell Freeman wrote her, "in spheres of life which belong to men".
Her temperament has been described as "depressive", which may have contributed to her withdrawal from the art world.
Clark never married; her one serious suitor, Hamilton Foley, was a
West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
cadet who went to the Philippines during the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
and was court-martialed for embezzlement in 1905.
She rarely spoke of her artwork upon her return to Holly Springs. At her death, however, she bequeathed several hundred paintings and drawings, which had been held in storage in the Lincoln Warehouse in New York, to the town, along with her house and with money to build a museum to house the art.
These works provided the backbone for the
Kate Freeman Clark Museum Kate name may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Kate (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname
* Gyula Káté (born 1982), Hungarian amateur boxer
* Lauren Kate (born 1981), American autho ...
in Holly Springs. The museum, which apart from a handful of pieces by Chase contains only her work, is located next to her former home, and with more than 1,000 of her paintings is believed to be the largest collection of paintings by a single artist anywhere in the world.
She had envisioned library space and a room for the display of fashions in the museum as well, but these could not be included in the final design due to a lack of funds.
Clark is buried at
Hillcrest Cemetery
Hillcrest Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, United States. Established in 1837, it is known as the "Little Arlington of the South." It contains the burials of five Confederate generals.
Location
The cemetery is locat ...
in Holly Springs.
Collections
Clark's paintings can be found in:
*
Greenville County Museum of Art
The Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA) is an art museum located in Greenville, South Carolina. Its collections focus mainly on American art, and its holdings include works by Andrew Wyeth, Josef Albers, Jasper Johns (raised in South Carolina), ...
,
Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...
*The Johnson Collection,
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Spartanburg is a city in and the county seat, seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest c ...
*
Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery,
Holly Springs, Mississippi
Holly Springs is a city in, and the county seat of, Marshall County, Mississippi, United States, near the southern border of Tennessee. Near the Mississippi Delta, the area was developed by European Americans for cotton plantations and was dep ...
*
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is an art museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The Brooks Museum, which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. The museum is a privately funded nonprofit institution located in ...
,
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
* Private collections
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Kate Freeman
1875 births
1957 deaths
19th-century American painters
19th-century American women painters
People from Holly Springs, Mississippi
20th-century American painters
Painters from Mississippi
Art Students League of New York alumni
American Impressionist painters
20th-century American women painters
Students of William Merritt Chase
Burials at Hillcrest Cemetery