Ann Clarke – Biography
Born in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1944, Ann Clarke grew up in Mill Hill in North London. After attending local primary and grammar schools, in 1962 she was accepted into the special four-year programme at the Slade School of Fine Arts at University College, London University. Having determined to be a painter at the age of 13, from then on she had directed all her efforts to that end.
Early influences were the paintings of the pre-Raphaelites and then Turner, Constable, Van Gogh and Holbein in the National Gallery, Duchamp, Miro, and Picasso at the Tate Gallery. The Victoria and Albert Museum introduced her to Japanese, Medieval European and Islamic art. She was stimulated by the Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Celtic objects in the British Museum. Fortunate to be able to regularly visit the great museums and galleries in London, she was soon familiar with the work of Cezanne, Monet, Matisse and eventually the Americans: Rauschenberg, Pollock, Frankenthaler, Rothko, De Kooning, as well as contemporary British painting by Ivon Hitchens, Frank Auerbach, Bernard Cohen, Harold Cohen, Peter Lanyon, Bridget Riley, (to name only a few). An exhibition of the collages of Kurt Schwitters made a lasting impression.
In 1966 she graduated with the terminal qualification offered, the Slade Diploma in Art and Design (London) and also won the Slade painting prize that year. She had also won a Goldsmith’s Travel Grant, which had enabled her to travel all over Italy in the summer of 1964, looking at art in the museums, cathedrals and galleries of Florence, Rome, Milan, Naples, Pompeii, Assisi, Genoa.
With work accepted into the 1965 “Young Contemporaries” National Exhibition in London and also the John Moore’s Liverpool national exhibition in 1967, she was selected as one of the new rising generation for “Five Young Artists” (the only female) to show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in 1966.
By this time she had married a fellow student: Phil Darrah and had two sons, Ben born in 1965 and Jason born in 1967. While her husband taught part time at several art schools to support the family, Clarke was unable to find work (there was no daycare in those days and teaching positions were not open to women with small children, although she had applied to several institutions). She became a homebound housewife and continued to make paintings at any opportunity, living in Balham and then Clapham (south London).
One day she saw an advertisement in the newspaper, the Times Educational Supplement for qualified art professionals to teach at the growing Fine Arts Department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, on a two year contract for what seemed to be an enormous amount of pay without income tax. She was rather bored in London, stuck at home without the possibility of a job or income and so saw this as a fine opportunity to have an adventure for two years, by which time her children would be old enough for primary school, they would return home, buy a house in London, and she would be able to resume her art career. With some difficulty she managed to persuade her husband to apply for the job, his application was successful, and they all left for Western Canada in August of 1968. He did well teaching Foundation Studies and Painting for the two years, then unexpectedly renewed his contract as a permanent position. Clarke had no option but to settle down and determine to make the most of having to live in a new country and culture, to keep painting and restart her career from scratch in a place where no-one knew her work or history.
Although experiencing severe homesickness for home and family she found Edmonton to be a good place to be stuck in. There were a number of people (Edmonton Art Gallery Directors Bill Kirby and Terry Fenton and Curator Karen Wilkin) who were open to the kind of abstract painting Clarke had been showing in England and with ties to various National and International critics and artists of similar interests. In the years following she had many solo exhibitions in Edmonton in commercial galleries. At the Edmonton Art Gallery she had solo shows in 1973, ‘77 and ’79 and also in several traveling international shows such as in 1975 “The Canadian Canvas” and in 1978 “Certain Traditions”.
Clarke’s first Canada Council Grant in 1973 enabled her to hire child and housekeeping help to paint in the daytime and also travel to Toronto, Montreal and New York. She was finally able to get out of the basement and rent a studio space of her own. During these years she worked as a part time instructor of painting, drawing and basic design at the University of Alberta, the University of Saskatchewan, Red Deer College, Grant McEwan College, the Banff Centre and the Edmonton Public School Board Continuing Education Department.
After a brief separation in 1975 when she went to Halifax to teach at NASCAD for one fall and winter session, then legal separation in 1977, Clarke finally divorced in 1979 but stayed in Edmonton. Once both of her sons were old enough for her to leave permanently, she moved to Toronto in 1984.
She lived in Toronto for a few years, teaching part-time at the University of Guelph, at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, and as adult art education co-ordinator at the Royal Ontario Museum. She moved to Tamworth near Kingston in 1987, taught at Queen’s University, St. Lawrence College and was Artistic Director of the Kingston Artists Association Inc. (now Modern Fuel). In 1992 she went to Thunder Bay to teach full-time in the Department of Visual Arts at Lakehead University. She taught Painting, Drawing, Basic Design and Major Studio. She was also Department Chair for several years, retiring as a full professor (Professor Emerita) in 2009. In 2013 Clarke moved back to the Kingston area to be nearer Ben’s family and to continue to paint full-time.
Born in Norwich, Norfolk, in 1944, Ann Clarke grew up in Mill Hill in North London. After attending local primary and grammar schools, in 1962 she was accepted into the special four-year programme at the Slade School of Fine Arts at University College, London University. Having determined to be a painter at the age of 13, from then on she had directed all her efforts to that end.
Early influences were the paintings of the pre-Raphaelites and then Turner, Constable, Van Gogh and Holbein in the National Gallery, Duchamp, Miro, and Picasso at the Tate Gallery. The Victoria and Albert Museum introduced her to Japanese, Medieval European and Islamic art. She was stimulated by the Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Celtic objects in the British Museum. Fortunate to be able to regularly visit the great museums and galleries in London, she was soon familiar with the work of Cezanne, Monet, Matisse and eventually the Americans: Rauschenberg, Pollock, Frankenthaler, Rothko, De Kooning, as well as contemporary British painting by Ivon Hitchens, Frank Auerbach, Bernard Cohen, Harold Cohen, Peter Lanyon, Bridget Riley, (to name only a few). An exhibition of the collages of Kurt Schwitters made a lasting impression.
In 1966 she graduated with the terminal qualification offered, the Slade Diploma in Art and Design (London) and also won the Slade painting prize that year. She had also won a Goldsmith’s Travel Grant, which had enabled her to travel all over Italy in the summer of 1964, looking at art in the museums, cathedrals and galleries of Florence, Rome, Milan, Naples, Pompeii, Assisi, Genoa.
With work accepted into the 1965 “Young Contemporaries” National Exhibition in London and also the John Moore’s Liverpool national exhibition in 1967, she was selected as one of the new rising generation for “Five Young Artists” (the only female) to show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in 1966.
By this time she had married a fellow student: Phil Darrah and had two sons, Ben born in 1965 and Jason born in 1967. While her husband taught part time at several art schools to support the family, Clarke was unable to find work (there was no daycare in those days and teaching positions were not open to women with small children, although she had applied to several institutions). She became a homebound housewife and continued to make paintings at any opportunity, living in Balham and then Clapham (south London).
One day she saw an advertisement in the newspaper, the Times Educational Supplement for qualified art professionals to teach at the growing Fine Arts Department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, on a two year contract for what seemed to be an enormous amount of pay without income tax. She was rather bored in London, stuck at home without the possibility of a job or income and so saw this as a fine opportunity to have an adventure for two years, by which time her children would be old enough for primary school, they would return home, buy a house in London, and she would be able to resume her art career. With some difficulty she managed to persuade her husband to apply for the job, his application was successful, and they all left for Western Canada in August of 1968. He did well teaching Foundation Studies and Painting for the two years, then unexpectedly renewed his contract as a permanent position. Clarke had no option but to settle down and determine to make the most of having to live in a new country and culture, to keep painting and restart her career from scratch in a place where no-one knew her work or history.
Although experiencing severe homesickness for home and family she found Edmonton to be a good place to be stuck in. There were a number of people (Edmonton Art Gallery Directors Bill Kirby and Terry Fenton and Curator Karen Wilkin) who were open to the kind of abstract painting Clarke had been showing in England and with ties to various National and International critics and artists of similar interests. In the years following she had many solo exhibitions in Edmonton in commercial galleries. At the Edmonton Art Gallery she had solo shows in 1973, ‘77 and ’79 and also in several traveling international shows such as in 1975 “The Canadian Canvas” and in 1978 “Certain Traditions”.
Clarke’s first Canada Council Grant in 1973 enabled her to hire child and housekeeping help to paint in the daytime and also travel to Toronto, Montreal and New York. She was finally able to get out of the basement and rent a studio space of her own. During these years she worked as a part time instructor of painting, drawing and basic design at the University of Alberta, the University of Saskatchewan, Red Deer College, Grant McEwan College, the Banff Centre and the Edmonton Public School Board Continuing Education Department.
After a brief separation in 1975 when she went to Halifax to teach at NASCAD for one fall and winter session, then legal separation in 1977, Clarke finally divorced in 1979 but stayed in Edmonton. Once both of her sons were old enough for her to leave permanently, she moved to Toronto in 1984.
She lived in Toronto for a few years, teaching part-time at the University of Guelph, at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, and as adult art education co-ordinator at the Royal Ontario Museum. She moved to Tamworth near Kingston in 1987, taught at Queen’s University, St. Lawrence College and was Artistic Director of the Kingston Artists Association Inc. (now Modern Fuel). In 1992 she went to Thunder Bay to teach full-time in the Department of Visual Arts at Lakehead University. She taught Painting, Drawing, Basic Design and Major Studio. She was also Department Chair for several years, retiring as a full professor (Professor Emerita) in 2009. In 2013 Clarke moved back to the Kingston area to be nearer Ben’s family and to continue to paint full-time.