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Ed Clark (1926- ) is an abstract expressionist painter who worked in Paris, France and New York. Clark was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1926. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1946 to 1951 and enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumièré in Paris after his arrival there in 1952. After his return to the United States, Clark became a charter member of the Brata Gallery. In 1957 he premiered his shaped canvas at the Brata Gallery Christmas group show. This shaped canvas is generally considered to be the first of its kind. In 1958, he began using a push broom to apply broad strokes of color to canvases on his studio floor.
Ed Clark has received multiple awards and honors including the National Endowment for the Arts' Master Award (1972), the United States Congressional Achievement Award (1994), and the Art Institute of Chicago's Legends and Legacy Award (2013). He has exhibited widely and his work is held in many collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the California Afro-American Museum, the Centro de Arté Moderno in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Louisiana State University, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the New York Public Library Schomburg Center.