Sale 2528 - African-American Fine Art, January 30, 2020

12 c IRENE V. CLARK (1927 - 1984) Mansion on Prairie Avenue . Oil on masonite board, circa 1955-62. 508x406 mm; 20x16 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto. Titled in oil, verso. Provenance: the Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., Chicago. Illustrated: Ebony , December, 1973, p. 42. Prairie Avenue is a north–south street on the South Side of Chicago known for its grand homes dating from the late 19th Century. Mansion on Prairie Avenue was a significant subject that Irene Clark returned to often. One version, dated circa 1955, is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and another very similar one is illustrated in Cedric Dover’s American Negro Art . Born in Washington, DC in 1927, Irene V. Clark studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and first gained recognition as an artist in Chicago while working during the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Clark studied screenprint printmaking with William McBride at the South Side Community Art Center and with John Miller at the 414 Workshop in Chicago. She also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and in Haiti. Clark worked as the gallery director of the Exhibit Gallery and Studio in Chicago, and was a member of the African-American Historical and Cultural Society. Clark moved to California, living in both Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. She exhibited at the Oakland Museum in 1968, the African Historical Society in 1972, and in numerous galleries in northern California. Much of Clark’s work is in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of Art and Atlanta University. Biography notes courtesy of Aaron Galleries; Dover pl. 49; p. 123. [5,000/7,000]