The King's Temptress, c. 1926
Polychromed and gilded wood
18 7/8 x 12 1/4 x 8 1/2 in
Biography
Allan Clark was born in Missoula Mont 1896, grew up in Tacoma, Washington. He studied at The Art Institute of Chicago with Albin Polásek. In 1919 he was elected to the National Sculpture Society. Clark moved to New York in 1920 to study with Robert Aitken at The Art Students’ League of New York. He began working independently in 1917. At the age of 27, Clark received a commission to sculpt 21 figures--18 life-sized terra-cotta images of famous men, and three larger-than-life stone carvings of male muses symbolizing Mastery, Inspiration and Thought--to adorn the top of the new library of the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1924, Clark and his wife joined an expedition to Japan, Korea and Peking. In 1925 he travelled with the Fogg Museum Expedition to cave chapels in China. Clark continued his travels after the expedition to Cambodia, Thailand and Burma. He returned to the United States in 1927, and exhibited at the Fogg Museum, and The Art Institute of Chicago.
Clark moved to Santa Fe in 1929, where he sculpted for the next 20 years, until his death in 1950.
