Background
Clark was born on 13 July in 1903, in London.
art critic, administrator, and public lecturer
Clark was born on 13 July in 1903, in London.
Clark attended Trinity College in Oxford, from 1922 to 1926.
In 1934, Clark became the youngest director ever appointed to London's National Gallery, a position he retained until 1945. Important paintings acquired at his suggestion include works by Sassetta (early 15th-century Sienese master), Giovanni di Paolo, Bosch, Rembrandt, Ingres, and Cézanne.Cezanne. He also instituted new, and often controversial, standards of scientific conservation. During World War II, when London was being bombed, Clark supervised the evacuation of the paintings and their safe return at the end of the war. In this period, Clark also became known as a champion of contemporary British artists, supporting and even providing shelter for them at his own expense.
From 1934 to 1944, Clark held the influential post of surveyor of the king's pictures, taking the opportunity to catalog the extensive collection of drawings by Leonardo at Windsor Castle (1935). This was followed by an important monograph on Leonardo in 1939. In 1946, he became Slade professor of fine arts at Oxford. His first lectures developed into the book Landscape Into Art (1949). This began a process of expressing his ideas in public lectures prior to publication. In 1951, Clark published his monograph on the long-neglected, 15th-century Italian painter Piero Della Francesca. Clark was the first to translate Piero's abstract, mathematical conception of forms into meaningful contemporary and humanistic terms. This was followed by The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956), a survey of the tradition of the nude in Western art. His other important books include Looking at Pictures (1960), Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance (1966), Civilisation (1975), and Moments of Vision (1982). Also noteworthy are two witty and unusually frank autobiographical volumes, Another Part of the Wood (1974) and The Other Half (1977).
In 1969, Clark was made a life peer and was known formally as Baron Clark of Saltwood, the castle that became his home.
Clark had a wide appeal beyond academic circles. His acclaimed series "Civilisation," first telecast in Great Britain in 1969-1970, circulated throughout the world and introduced millions to a new world of art appreciation. His great virtue was to combine a close stylistic analysis with a humanistic explanation of a work's general appeal. To scholars, Clark is best remembered for his profound insights into the Italian Renaissance generally and Leonardo da Vinci, Piero Della Francesca, Rembrandt, and J. M. W. Turner in particular.