The Life of Clark Voorhees
Clark Greenwood Voorhees was an American Impressionist and Tonalist landscape painter who was one of the founders of the Old Lyme Art Colony. Born in New York City, he initially pursued the sciences, earning degrees in chemistry from Yale and Columbia University. In 1894, he began to seriously pursue fine art by enrolling at the Art Students League, later studying at the Metropolitan School of Fine Art, with Irving Ramsey Wiles on Long Island, and with Leonard Ochtman in Connecticut.
His studies also took him to Europe, where he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris under Benjamin Constant and J. P. Laurens, and spent time in the Netherlands and the French village of Barbizon.
Artistic Style and Legacy
Stylistically, Voorhees remained somewhat loyal to the Barbizon-derived, Tonalist style associated with Henry Ward Ranger, even as many others adopted Childe Hassam's Impressionist style. Later in life, he gradually adopted a more Impressionistic approach and experimented with etching in the 1930s. His paintings often depict Old Lyme prospects, Bermuda scenes, Newport, Rhode Island, and Western Massachusetts.
His work has been exhibited at several institutions, including:
- The National Academy of Design
- The Society of American Artists
- The American Watercolor Society
- The Carnegie Institute
- The Art Institute of Chicago
Examples of his work are held in the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Florence Griswold Museum, and the Lyme Historical Society.
