The Artist and His Legacy
Hulings' work defines a modernist sensibility without departing from the real—without removing all that is recognizable or deluding the audience by escaping into the wholly abstract.
The Modern Realist
Hulings undermined the distraction of class, reminding us that most people don’t move between glamorous towers or drag their knuckles. He showcased the dignity, nobility, and beauty of common people and ordinary things.
One of the Great Discoverers
Hulings insisted the contemporary world could only be fully understood by specific, personal awareness of its inhabitants. Therefore, he was relentlessly devoted to the figure and figurative work. He pursued stunning multinational backdrops replete with the day-to-day realities only visible through the lens of an international nomad.
Challenging an Audience & Status Quo
A relentless experimenter, Hulings exploited modern techniques from the conventions of impressionism and abstract art, bending them with equal ease into the service of an open-ended art of the figure that wouldn’t limit itself to conventional realist boundaries. His compositional "recipes" enabled him to play the sly subversive, literally slipping things under our noses that we might otherwise be too closed to notice.
Advancing the Craft and its Meaning
Clark Hulings assailed our bias toward the “other” by engaging culture through visceral daily reality. An enemy of distraction, he reprimanded modernism’s flight from that challenge and into the purely abstract. He instead produced a continuous documentary of a changing world at the pace of its most common inhabitants.
Freshly Revealed
New Hulings discoveries every week!
Collector Profile: Stephen Zimmerman
“In The Pink Serape, there’s busyness and a focal point. There’s a lot going on: the movement, the energy, the colors. I go back to this painting over and over again, and each time the story unfolds, it’s a little different.” Indianapolis’ Stephen Zimmerman is an art collector, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, founding …
SOLD: El Palmar #3
“Judging from the other boats lined up on the shore, this boatman may be the last one in tonight—so hopefully, his friends are waiting for him with a well-earned cerveza.” Today we’re in Southeast Spain in the village of El Palmar, Murica. El Palmar #3 is a 20 x 30″ oil on canvas, and …
SOLD: Stone Bridge
Stone Bridge 8 x 16″ oil on canvas 1987 This wind-swept Hulings gem sold at the Scottsdale Art Auction April 9-10 2021!
SOLD: Blonde Girl-Sicily
“This little blonde girl, having her mini-adventure, could be the great-great-granddaughter of Normans, Vandals, or Vikings.” By the early 1970s, Clark Hulings’ subject matter as an easel painter had firmly landed: intricate compositions with traditional but not nostalgic subjects, strongly based in Europe and Mexico. Stateside, at this point, Clark was coming to the …
SOLD: Old Lady in Black – Valencia
“The old lady in black was still there, and I showed her a reproduction of the painting. Big mistake! We spent the next hour going from stall to stall to exhibit her new-found fame.” It’s been a while since we’ve featured a Hulings market scene, and today, we’re in Valencia, Spain. Many artists explore …
James D. Balestrieri: How Do You Write A Book About An Artist?
“Hulings was a working artist whose subject was work.” In the third part of our Haverford College series, Hulings Estate writer in residence James D. Balestrieri shares his research for the new Clark Hulings book. Jim discusses his thematic approach to Hulings’ life and work, going beyond a traditional biography or monograph, and honoring the …
James D. Balestrieri: How Do You Write A Book About An Artist? Read More »
Jack Morris: Hulings’ Enduring Value
“The experience with Clark and his work has been one of the most exciting aspects of my professional career.” Gallerist Jack A. Morris Jr. is one of the world’s foremost experts on Clark Hulings. In this second video in our Haverford College series, Jack discusses Hulings’ easel painting years. With his dual perspectives on the …
Elizabeth Hulings: Clark’s Formative Years
“When he was six, he came home from first grade with a crayon portrait of his stepmother, Elena. He put it on the table and everybody knew it was her—because he caught her likeness. I think that everybody in that moment said: uh oh. We’ve got an artist on our hands!” We’re proud to bring …
Body and Soul
“Street in Naples is no less human for the absence of particular melodrama and tragedy.” Our writer-in-residence James D. Balestrieri is offering us a preview of his chapter Body and Soul. It’s an interesting moment to think about transitions: how Hulings came of age as a painter, and the emergence of his mature themes of …
A Bridge Between
In Hulings’ transition from watercolor to oil, there was an era where he would repeat subjects, resulting in paired paintings—so we can now compare the oil and watercolor iterations. As many of you know, there is a major Hulings book project in the works, and our author James D. Balestrieri is researching these doubles.
Clark Hulings Press
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