Kenneth Clark

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This article is about the art historian, for other persons with similar names see Kenneth Clark(e) (disambiguation).


Sir Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM CH KCB, (July 13, 1903 – May 21, 1983) was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and the most famous art historian of his generation.

Clark was born in London, the only child of Kenneth MacKenzie Clark and Margaret Alice, a wealthy Scottish family with roots in the textile trade (the "Clark" in Coats & Clark threading). Kenneth Clark the elder had retired in 1909 at the age of 41 to become a member of the 'idle rich' (as described by W. D. Rubinstein in The Biographical Dictionary of Life Peers).

The younger Clark was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied the history of art. In 1927 he married a fellow Oxford student, Elizabeth Jane Martin. The couple had three children: Alan, in 1928, and twins Colette (known as Celly) and Colin in 1932.

An admirer of Ruskin and a protégé of the most influential art critic of the time, Bernard Berenson, Clark quickly became the British art establishment's most respected aesthetician. After a stint as fine arts curator at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, in 1933 at age 31, Clark was appointed director of the National Gallery. He was the youngest person ever to hold the post. The following year he also became Surveyor of the King's Pictures, a post he held until 1945. He was a controversial figure however, in part due to his distaste for much of modern art. Nevertheless, he was an influential supporter of modern sculptor Henry Moore and, as Chairman of the War Artists committee, he ensured that Moore found work. In 1946 Clark resigned his directorship in order to devote more time to writing. Between 1946 and 1950 he was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. He was a founding board member and also served as Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain and had a major role in the art program of the Festival of Britain.

Kenneth Clark was created Knight Commander of the Bath in 1938, and made a Companion of Honour in 1959. He also received the Order of Merit in 1976. In 1955 he purchased Saltwood Castle in Kent.

An indefatigable lecturer in both academic and broadcast settings, Kenneth Clark's stated goal was to make art more accessible to the masses. He was one of the founders, in 1954, of the Independent Television Authority, serving as its governor until 1957, when he moved to ITA's rival BBC. In 1966 he wrote and produced Civilisation for BBC television, a series on the history of Western civilisation as seen through its art. When it was broadcast on PBS in 1969, Civilization was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, catapulting Clark to international fame.

He was Chancellor of the University of York from 1967 to 78 and a trustee of the British Museum. Clark was awarded a life barony in 1969, taking the title Lord Clark of Saltwood in the County of Kent (The British satirical magazine Private Eye nicknamed him Lord Clark of Civilisation).

His wife Jane died in 1976 and the following year Clark married Nolwen de Janzé-Rice, former wife of Edward Rice, and daughter of the Count of Janzé alias Comte Frederic de Janze (a well-known French racing driver of the 1920s and 1930s) by his wife Alice Silverthorne (better known by her married names as Alice de Janze or Alice de Trafford), a wealthy American heiress resident in Kenya. Both her first husband and her father were wealthy landowners. Kenneth Clark died in Hythe after a short illness in 1983.

His elder son, Alan Clark, became a prominent Conservative MP and was a writer-historian.

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Quotes

  • "People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilization. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater."
  • "It is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs."

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Books

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References

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