Grace Clements (artist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Grace Clements
|
|
|---|---|
| Born | June 8, 1905 Oakland, California, U.S.
|
| Died | January 10, 1969 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
|
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Thayer Waldo (married 1938) Robert DeLuce (spouse at time of death) |
Grace Richardson Clements (1905–1969) was an American painter, mosaic artist, and art critic. She was an active artist from the 1920s to the early 1940s.
Contents
Grace Clements' Early Life
Grace Clements was born in Oakland, California, on June 8, 1905. She married Traverse Clements in 1923, but they divorced in 1928.
She studied art in New York City from 1925 to 1930. Her teachers were famous artists Kenneth Hayes Miller and Boardman Robinson. In 1930, she moved to Los Angeles and settled in the Edendale area.
Grace Clements also taught art. She shared her skills at the Chouinard Art Institute and the Stickney Memorial Art School in Pasadena.
Grace Clements' Art Career
In 1931, Grace Clements had her own art show. It was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where 21 of her paintings were displayed.
Post-Surrealist Group
By 1935, she joined a group of artists in Los Angeles called the Post-Surrealists. Other artists in this group included Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg.
This group showed their art in an important exhibition. It was first at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in December 1935. Then, it moved to the Brooklyn Museum the next summer.
Grace Clements was also the first in her group to explain their art ideas. She wrote an article called "New Content—New Form" in 1936. It was published in the Art Front journal.
Art and Social Justice
Grace Clements cared deeply about social justice. She used her art to show her feelings about society. She worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was a government program that helped artists during the Great Depression.
Her famous works include:
- Murals and ceramic tiles at the Long Beach Airport (1942). These are called Communication (Aviation and Navigation).
- The History of Aviation, a fresco painting. She created this with Jean Goodwin Ames at Charles A. Lindbergh Middle School in Long Beach.
- A large mosaic at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium. At the time, it was the biggest cut-tile mosaic in the United States.
- A piece called Reconsideration of Time and Space.
Later Life and Work
In 1938, Clements married journalist Thayer Waldo. They moved to the Bay Area in the late 1940s. During the 1940s, Grace Clements stopped painting as much. Instead, she became an art critic.
She wrote for Arts and Architecture and Art Front magazines. She also did radio commentary, including a weekly show on the Bay Area radio station KPFA. Later in her life, Grace Clements married astrologer Robert DeLuce. She also became interested in astrology herself.
Grace Clements passed away on January 10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California. Her artworks are kept in public collections. These include Mills College, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Wolfsonian-FIU museum.
Exhibitions of Grace Clements' Work
Grace Clements' art was shown in many places. Here are some of her exhibitions:
- Jake Zeitlin's Book Shop, Los Angeles, California (solo show, 1930)
- An Exhibition of Modern Paintings by Grace Clements, Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art (solo show, 1931)
- Oakland Art Gallery (group show, 1932)
- Post-Surrealists, San Francisco Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum (group show, 1935/1936)
- New York World's Fair (group show, 1939)
- Southern California Art Project, Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art (group show, 1939)
- Between Two Wars, Whitney Museum of American Art (group show, 1942)
- Southern California Art Project, Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art (group show, 1944)
