The Artist’s Sketch: A Biography of Painter Kate Freeman Clark

Description

She mastered New York’s art world — then never painted again. The Artist’s Sketch by Carolyn J. Brown is the 2017 illustrated biography that finally brings a remarkable Southern painter out of obscurity.

Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1875, Kate Freeman Clark spent twenty-nine years in New York’s art world, studying under William Merritt Chase and exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Carnegie Institute — then, in 1924, abruptly put down her brushes and went home to Mississippi. Brown draws on letters, photographs, and Clark’s surviving works to reconstruct both halves of this double life: the ambitious young artist mastering plein air painting in the city, and the reclusive Mississippi woman who never painted again yet left more than a thousand canvases to her hometown.

Published by the University Press of Mississippi, the book also introduces readers to the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery in Holly Springs, where her bequest is preserved — a hidden treasure of American Impressionism.

“The Artist’s Sketch: A Biography of Painter Kate Freeman Clark” by Carolyn J. Brown is a 2017 illustrated biography that finally brings a remarkable Southern painter out of obscurity. Born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1875, Kate Freeman Clark spent twenty-nine years in New York’s art world, studying under William Merritt Chase and exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Carnegie Institute — then, in 1924, abruptly put down her brushes and went home to Mississippi.
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nBrown draws on letters, photographs, and Clark’s own surviving works to reconstruct both halves of this double life: the ambitious young artist mastering plein air painting in the city, and the reclusive Mississippi woman who never painted again yet left more than a thousand canvases to her hometown. The result is a well-researched, beautifully illustrated portrait of talent, ambition, and the choices that shape an artist’s legacy.
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nPublished by the University Press of Mississippi, The Artist’s Sketch also introduces a new generation of readers to the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery in Holly Springs, where her bequest of paintings is preserved — a hidden treasure of American Impressionism.