1930s Oil Portrait of a Male Model in Miami.
Signed to right hand corner with Miami 1938. Frame measures 31.5” x 24”

Christopher Clark was a prominent artist in Florida during the early to mid-twentieth Century, renowned for his portraits and mural work. Born in 1903 in Tampa, Florida, Clark studied art and theater in New York where he began doing portraits of prominent Manhattan socialites and actors. Clark returned to Florida, where he taught painting at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota and helped establish the Island City School of Art in Key West in 1947. While living in Miami Beach, Clark continued to paint portraits and became known for the murals he did in The Surf Club and the residences of prominent Florida socialites. Clark was close with automobile magnate Walter Chrysler, Jr., and even curated Chrysler's collection of old Dutch masters. Clark's own artwork was contemporaneously exhibited in New York, Washington, Miami, Palm Beach, San Francisco and Mexico and included in notable collections of the time, including the collections of Walter Chrysler, Jr., and John D. Rockefeller.

Clark’s artwork won numerous awards, with his most known painting, The Crap Shooters, being selected to represent the state of Florida in the first National Exhibit of American Art in New York in 1938. "The Crap Shooters", along with another painting, "The Snake Preacher-and They Shall Take Up Serpents" were the first two in a series of paintings, titled: "I heard America Singing", inspired by a poem by Walt Whitman. According to historian and author, Ken Furtado, Clark was a contemporary of artist George Quaintance and likely inspired by his success, Clark began to similarly photograph and market his own portraits of muscular young men.

https://www.georgequaintance.com/97-christopher-clark.html

Clark passed away at his home in Tampa in 1973 at the age of 70.

Wear to canvas on upper left-hand corner. A rare find!

Artist: Christopher Clark
Issued: 1938
Dimensions: 18 (canvas)" L x 26 (canvas)" H
Country of Origin: Miami, FL. USA

Age related wear.