A gas station on a rainy night. A proud Mariachi musician holding up his bass guitar. A plate of red snappers with lemon. The architecture of a church in Spain. Modern watercolor master Timothy J. Clark finds inspiration at home and abroad.
At the age of 18, the artist made his first trip out of the country in 1970, when he visited Guaymas, Mexico, with his drawing mentor, Jess Rubio, to experience the Mardi Gras-type celebration Quema de Malhumor (“Burn Your Pet Peeves”). They wound up getting arrested on a specious charge, but when they created drawings of every jail guard and the police chief, they were freed. “My ability to focus intently on the drawing grew more in those few hours than in years of training,” Clark recalls.
Since then, he has made a career of painting what he sees during his travels, advising young artists that while it is important to make a living, it is much more important to make a life.
The current exhibition “Timothy J. Clark: Going Places,” on display through March 8, 2025, at the Hilbert Museum, features nearly 40 of the artist’s watercolors. Subjects include scenes he found near his home in Capistrano Beach, California, such as Pines Park Nocturne, to griffins in Portugal, churches in Spain, a concert in Prague and the Taj Mahal in India.
A SUCCESS STORY
Clark’s is a California success story. Born in Santa Ana, he was hooked on art from his first class. He found teachers who helped him look at art from traditional and modernist perspectives: at 18, he entered Los Angeles’s Art Center College of Design, and later the Chouinard Art Institute shortly before it merged into what is now CalArts. Clark capped his education with an M.F.A. at California State University, Long Beach.
At age 13, working as a delivery boy for a pharmacy, Clark delivered prescriptions by bicycle to culturally diverse neighborhoods — undoubtedly the beginning of his affinity for both bikes and examples of Hispanic culture as subjects for his paintings. His forays into the barrios have endured, and his reasonable skill in speaking Spanish have opened doors that enabled him to savor their customs.
Clark has brought his brush and easel to many places, including Mexico, South America, the Iberian Peninsula and Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and throughout the U.S. Marcus Burke, co-curator of the exhibition, notes: “Prominent in these travels are the Hispanic locations, which have reinforced his experience from childhood… Instead of seeking only the exotic and the picturesque, he seeks to affirm a sense of common cultural values. [He is] a traveler artist in total command of an artistic medium made to travel.”
Today, Clark’s work is found in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress, and he has served as an art educator, author and even television host on the 13-part PBS series, “Focus on Watercolor” in 1989.
