Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark,
OM,
CH,
KCB,
FBA (13 July 1903 – 21 May
1983) was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one
of the best-known
art historians of his
generation. In 1969, he achieved an international presence as the
writer, producer, and presenter of the BBC Television series,
Civilisation.
Biography
Early life
Kenneth
Clark was born in London
, the only
child of Kenneth MacKenzie Clark and Margaret Alice McArthur, his
cousin. The Clarks were a wealthy Scottish
family with
roots in the textile trade (the "Clark" in Coats & Clark threading). His great,
great grandfather had invented the
cotton
spool. 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).
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.
Early career
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 30, 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. As Director of the National Gallery he oversaw the
successful relocation and storage of the collection to avoid the
Blitz and continued a programme of concerts and performances. He
was a controversial figure however, in part due to his distaste for
much of
modern art and
Post-Modernist thought. Nevertheless, he was
an influential supporter of modern sculptor
Henry Moore and, as Chairman of the War Artists
Advisory Committee, he persuaded the government not to conscript
artists thus ensuring that Moore found work. He was also an advisor
to the Ministry of Information commissioning
Dylan Thomas amongst others to write scripts
for propaganda films. 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
from 1955 to 1960, 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
.
Clark the broadcaster
An indefatigable lecturer in both academic and broadcast settings,
Clark's mastery was to make accessible complex and profound subject
matter that could then be appreciated by an extremely broad
audience. He was one of the founders, in 1954, of the
Independent Television
Authority, serving as its Chairman until 1957, when he moved to
ITA's rival
BBC. In 1969 he wrote and presented
Civilisation for
BBC television, a series on the history of Western civilisation as
seen through its art. Also broadcast on
PBS in
1969,
Civilisation was successful on both sides of the
Atlantic, gaining Clark an international profile. According to
Clark, the series was created in answer to the growing criticism of
Western Civilisation, from its value system to its heroes.
In 1970,
the Irish
national newspaper TV critics honoured Clark with a
Jacob's Award for
Civilisation.
A self-described "hero-worshipper", Clark proved to be an ardent
pro-individualist,
Humanist and
anti-marxist.
His comments on the subject of 1960s radical
University students, from a final episode of Civilisation,
are but one example of his extremely critical view of Post Modernism in all its contemporary forms:
"I can see them [the students] still through the University of the
Sorbonne
, impatient to change the world, vivid in hope,
although what precisely they hope for, or believe in, I don't
know." - Clark,
Civilisation, Episode 12.
Clark believed in the sublime and noble nature of man, and his
quiet, witty and often devastating criticism of environmentalism,
the Monarchy, religious authoritarianism and
Statism continues to win him praise from a wide
range of the political spectrum, most notably from those of a
Classical Liberal and Objectivist mind-set. And yet, Clark was also
able to see the Church as a repository for the best minds that the
West had produced, a place where men of action were necessarily
attracted. A highly tolerant man, in discussing those with whom he
disagreed, Clark was able in a dignified and respectful manner, to
illustrate his differences along with effectively expressing his
praise.
Later life
He was
Chancellor of the University
of York
from 1967 to 1978 and a trustee of the British
Museum
. Clark was awarded a life peerage in 1969, taking the title
Baron Clark, of Saltwood in the County of Kent
(The British satirical magazine Private Eye
nicknamed him Lord Clark of
Civilisation).
In 1975 he supported the campaign to create a separate Turner
Gallery for the Turner Bequest and in 1980 agreed to open a
symposium on Turner at the University of York, of which he had been
Chancellor, but illness compelled him to back out of that
commitment, which Lord Harewood undertook in his place.
His wife Jane died in 1976 and the following year Lord 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.
Lord Clark died aged
79 in Hythe
after a
short illness in 1983. In the last days of his life, he was
received into the Catholic Church.
Legacy
Lord Clark's elder son,
Alan Clark,
became a prominent
Conservative MP and was a writer-historian and
celebrated diarist.
Lord Clark continues to be a source of inspiration for many
contemporary artists, historians and television producers.
Quotes
- "The great artist takes what he needs."
- "Heroes don't often tolerate the company of other heroes."
- "Seen by itself the David's body might be some unusually taut
and vivid work of antiquity; it is only when we come to the head
that we are aware of a spiritual force that the ancient world never
knew. I suppose that this quality, which I may call heroic, is not
a part of most people's idea of civilisation. It involves a
contempt for convenience and a sacrifice of all those pleasures
that contribute to what we call civilised life. It is the enemy of
happiness."
- "Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the
strangest inventions of Western man.
It could not have been foreseen by any logical process."
- "People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to
civilisation. 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."
- "Lives devoted to Beauty seldom end well."
- "I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human
spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous
room."
- "The great achievement of the Catholic Church lay in
harmonizing, civilising the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant
people."
- "The stabilising, comprehensive religions of the world, the
religions which penetrate to every part of a man's being--in Egypt,
India or China--gave the female principle of creation at least as
much importance as the male, and wouldn't have taken seriously a
philosophy that failed to include them both...It's a curious fact
that the all-male religions have produced no religious imagery--in
most cases have positively forbidden it. The great religious art of
the world is deeply involved with the female principle."
- " I cannot distinguish between thought and feeling, and I am
convinced that a combination of words and music, colour and
movement can extend human experience in a way that words alone
cannot do. For this reason I believe in television as a
medium,...". Civilisation: A Personal View (1969) p
xv.
Popular culture references
- In Episode 37 of the television series Monty Python's Flying
Circus, Clark is portrayed in a boxing match against
Jack Bodell, then UK heavyweight
champion. Since Clark merely paces the ring lecturing about English
renaissance art and does not throw any punches, Bodell knocks him
out in the first round. Bodell is thus named the new Professor of
Fine Art at Oxford.
- In Episode 21 of the television series Second City Television, Clark is
portrayed as a guest on the Sammy Maudlin Show, where he promotes a
sequel to Civilisation by showing some outtakes from the show.
- In Not the Nine O'Clock
News, Series 2 - Episode 7 First Aired: 12 May 1980, the Under
Secretary For Defence, (Rowan Atkinson), after explaining that the
world is about to end and that everyone should have as much sex as
possible before civilisation collapses, sums up with "Eat your
heart out, Lord Clark."
Styles and honours
- Mr Kenneth Clark (1903-1938)
- Sir Kenneth Clark KCB (1938-1946)
- Prof. Sir Kenneth Clark KCB (1946-1949)
- Prof. Sir Kenneth Clark KCB FBA (1949-1950)
- Sir Kenneth Clark KCB FBA (1950-1959)
- Sir Kenneth Clark CH KCB FBA (1959-1969)
- The Rt. Hon. The Lord Clark CH KCB FBA (1969-1976)
- The Rt. Hon. The Lord Clark OM CH KCB FBA (1976-1983)
Books
- The Gothic Revival (1928)
- Catalogue of the Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in the
Collection of HM King at Windsor Castle (1935 2 vols)
- Leonardo da Vinci: An Account of his development as an
Artist (1939, rev. ed. 1952)
- Florentine Painting: The Fifteenth Century (1945)
- Piero della Francesca (1951)
- Landscape into Art (1949)
- Moments of Vision (1954), the Romanes Lecture for 1954. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
- The Nude: a study in ideal form (1956) A.W. Mellon
Lectures in the Fine Arts, delivered in 1953.
- Looking at Pictures (1960)
- Ruskin Today (1964) (edited and annotated by)
- Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance (1966)
- The Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of HM
Queen at Windsor Castle (1968/9 with Carlo Pedretti 3
vols)
- Civilisation: A Personal View (1969)
- Blake and Visionary Art (1973)
- The Romantic Rebellion (1973)
- Another Part of the Wood (1974) (autobiography)
- Animals and Men (1977)
- The Other Half (1977) (autobiography)
- What is a Masterpiece? (1979)
- Feminine Beauty (1980)
Further reading
- Meryle Secrest. Kenneth Clark: A Biography (1985)
References
- The Irish Times, "Controversy is indication of RTÉ's
success, says minister", December 11, 1970
- See also H2G2 website:[1]
Bibliography
- Vital Vulgarity Clark's role in the founding of
ITV (from the Transdiffusion group of TV history websites)
-
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/message/an/localities.africa.general/435.3
– for Clark's second marriage to Nolwen, and her maternal
affiliation
- http://www.cousinconnect.com/d/a/11502 – for Lady Clark's
mother
External links
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