Robert Sterling Clark

Robert Sterling Clark ( also Sterling Clark) ( born June 25, 1877 in New York City; † December 29, 1956 in Williamstown ) was an American businessman, art collector, patron. After attending a China expedition, he published a travel diary with scientific publications. Together with his wife he founded the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

Youth

Sterling Clark came as one of four children of the entrepreneur Alfred Corning Clark and his wife, Elizabeth Scriven Clark in New York to the world. His grandfather, Edward Clark, a lawyer, founded in 1851 together with the inventor Isaac Merritt Singer, the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which he was president from 1875. The I.M. Singer & Company became the largest sewing machine manufacturers in the world, with production facilities in numerous countries. Already the parents of Sterling Clark had built up a small collection of paintings, so that he grew up in a not only wealthy, but also art-loving environment. After finishing school he began to study engineering at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, which he completed in 1899.

China

Then he went to the United States Army, where he was involved in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion initially in the Philippine-American War on the American occupation of the Philippines and later in China. After the end of hostilities he returned to the U.S. and worked another two years for the Army in Washington, DC. 1903 he again went to China and started in the following years with the preparations for an operation financed by him extended expedition in the Chinese province of Shaanxi. Together with the zoologist Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885-1954), and 36 other people he undertook in 1908 /09 which was named after him Clark expedition, the operation cartographic, ethnological and zoological research in the north of the province. After the murder of her interpreter, however, it came to an abrupt termination of this expedition. The travel diary and the scientific results published later in book form.

Art Collector

1911 settled Sterling Clark settled in Paris and began building his art collection. Together with his brother Stephen Carlton Clark, a likewise significant collector, he traveled to Florence in 1912 and acquired the portrait of a lady by Domenico Ghirlandaio. This was followed in a short time more paintings mainly of Italian, Flemish and Dutch masters. In 1919 he married the Frenchwoman Francine Clary ( 1876-1960 ), an actress of the Comédie Française, which exercised in the period following major influence on the artistic tastes of her husband. Together they built in the next 35 years from the existing collection, but shifted the emphasis on French painter of the 19th century. At dealer Knoedler and Durand-Ruel, the couple bought more than 35 paintings by Pierre -Auguste Renoir and numerous works of the other Impressionists. In addition to pictures of the Barbizon School and works by American artist a considerable collection of old English silver work originated. On the basis of inheritance disputes to Sterling Clark quarreled in 1923 with his brother Stephen and both spoke of their lives no longer speak to each other, but competed on the art market for the best pictures. While his brother played a prominent role in the U.S. East Coast society and its collections later public collections donated, Sterling and Francine Clark lived largely retired and rare works of art on loan to exhibitions. In addition to painting horses presented the second passion of Clarks dar. So her horse Never Say won the 1954 Epsom Derby and numerous paintings testify with horse motifs in her collection today by their enthusiasm for horses.

Museum

The collection of Clarks had soon reached a level that made it impossible to keep all works of art in their townhouse in Manhattan. An increasing number of art treasures was stored and the Clarks were concerned about the future of their collection. Initially, there were ideas to establish a museum in Copper Town, the residence of his parents, or to leave the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Coppertown but his brother Stephen Clark had the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Fenimore Art Museum founded and at the same time he was in the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum. 1946 Sterling and Francine Clark then decided to transform their town house modeled after the Frick Collection in a collector's museum before finally City decided for fear of a nuclear attack on New York to move their collection to the supposedly safer Williamstown, Massachusetts, where already the father and the grandfather of Sterling Clark had studied. The opening of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, was held on 17 May 1955 for half a year before Sterling Clark died. Next to the museum, he continued creating the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, which supports not only the arts and social projects.

Pictures of the Sterling and Francine Clark Collection

Gilbert Stuart: Portrait of George Washington

John Singer Sargent: Portrait of Carolus -Duran

Frederic Remington: Dismounted Moving Led Horses

Edouard Manet: Moosröschen in a vase

Pierre- Auguste Renoir: Monsieur Fournaise

Claude Monet: The cliffs of Etretat

Winslow Homer: Summer Squall

Publications

• Robert Sterling Clark, Arthur de Carle Sowerby: Shên -kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in North China, 1908-1909. London and Leipzig 1912