Quick Facts
Biography
Alson S. Clark (25 March 1876 – 23 March 1949) was an American Impressionist painter best remembered for his impressionist landscapes. Born in Chicago, Illinois, his art education included training at the Art Institute of Chicago (where he enrolled at Saturday classes at the age of 11), the Art Students League of New York, the Académie Julian in Paris and in the atelier of William Merritt Chase. He spent much of his early career working in Paris, France. He served in the US Army as an aerial photographer during World War I. In 1920 he and his wife relocated to Pasadena, California. He taught fine art at Occidental College, and was director of the Stickney Memorial School of Art in Pasadena.
His memberships in arts organizations included the Pasadena Society of Artists and the California Art Club. His work was included in the Tonal Impressionism exhibition curated by Harry Muir Kurtzworth in 1937, along with the works of Frank Tenney Johnson, Frank Tolles Chamberlain and Theodore Lukits which was held in the Los Angeles Art Association Gallery at the Los Angeles Public Library.
Public art
In addition to landscape paintings, Alson Clark painted murals for the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, and the fire curtain of the Pasadena Playhouse, depicting a Spanish galleon in full sail. A group of murals completed in 1929 can still be seen at the former 1st Trust & Savings Bank at 587 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California. The murals consist of four panels standing approximately ten feet in height, each depicting a major southern California industry: oil drilling, citrus farming, the movies, and shipping.