Peter Clarke South African, 1929-2014
Peter Clarke was born in the naval port of Simon's Town in 1929, the year of the infamous ‘Swart Gevaar’ or ‘Black Peril’ election. Due to the rise of the more formal racial system of apartheid in South Africa, he was denied any form of institutional art education until the 1960s. He initially worked as a stevedore in the Cape Town docks but sought out art education wherever he could find it. In a well-known newspaper photograph, Clarke appears attending John Coplan’s art classes in District Six, seated at an easel, in 1947. In 1972, he was forcibly removed from Simon's Town by the apartheid regime and relocated to the desolate Slangkop Township, later rechristened 'Ocean View' by its residents.
Clarke’s art career, which spanned over 60 years, saw him become not only a staunch critic of apartheid but a lyrical modernist painter who is now deemed one of South Africa’s greatest artists. He was initially influenced by Picasso and became interested in 20th-century Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros, whose works resonate with his own experiences in South Africa’s Western Cape.
Preoccupied with a localised sensibility, his subjects and palette emerged from a strong and, at times, melancholic attachment to place. The deep blues and ochres of his paintings and prints are seemingly burnished from the sea, sky, plants, and earth that surrounded him. Their subject matter has an overt social and political content, and his depictions of ordinary people in a bold, naturalistic style are informed by their existential struggles set against the stark beauty of their environment.
Awards
Clarke achieved six international awards for writing and art (Italy, USA, & Taiwan), including Honorary Life Member, Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles (1984); and six South African awards for writing and art, including three since 2000, the Order of Khamanga, silver class (2005), and the Molten Award (2000) for services to the visual arts, awarded by the Cape Tercentenary Foundation.
Collections
Arnold Becher Museum, South Africa
Baerum Kommune, Sandvika, Norway
Caledon Museum, Caledon, South Africa
Cape Town City Library, South Africa
Community Arts Project, South Africa
Dennis W. Koles, Kiama, New South Wales, Australia
District Six Museum, Cape Town, South Africa
Durban Art Museum, South Africa
Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Fuba Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
Johnson Publishing Co., Chicago, USA
King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Kunsthalle Museen der Stadt Bielefeld, Germany
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., USA
Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Yugoslavia
Nasou Publishing Co., Cape Town, South Africa
National Art Gallery, Gaborone, Botswana
National Museum and Art Gallery, Gaborone, Botswana
Pentech, Belville, South Africa
Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, USA
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Stichting Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal, Holland
The Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa
William Humphreys Art Gallery, Kimberley, South Africa
