Clarence Major, painter
E-mail address: cmajor@ucdavis.edu
Clarence Major art links:
Clarence Major on Fine Art America
Biographical Information
Clarence Major grew up in Chicago where he took private art lessons from Gus Nall and attended drawing and lecture classes on a James Nelson Raymond Scholarship in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute. His teachers were Addis Osborne, Cynthia Bollinger and others. He later earned a Ph.D. in both fine arts and literature from Union Graduate Institute and University. His paintings have been featured in many solo and group shows, and are in many private and several public collections. The University of North Carolina Press published an illustrated book about his paintings and writing, Clarence Major and His Art in 2001. In Spring 2012 The Art and Life of Clarence Major by Keith E. Byerman will be publlished. He is professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis
Artist Statement
“I want an art that will both give me contentment and at the same time challenge me—a dynamic art. I go through periods when my work is figurative, then all landscapes or interiors or still lifes—often in a neo-expressionist mode. But I am primarily a figurative artist. I want to make paintings that seem to look back at you with intensity (Rilke). My work is well within the Euro-American Tradition. Painting is the most important activity in my life.”
Exhibition History
Solo Exhibitions:
“Twenty Oil Paintings,” Sarah Lawrence College Library, Bronxville, New York, spring, 1974.
“New Works on Paper,” First National Bank Gallery, Boulder, Colorado, January 3-17, 1986.
“Double Consciousness: The Paintings of Clarence Major,” Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, September 4-October 28, 2001.
“Figures in Full,” 35 paintings on a 5-at-a-time rotating display for a year, previewport.com, 2002.
“A Festival of Figures,” Exploding Head Gallery, Sacramento, California, April 2003.
“Impressions of Yolo County,” The Main Street Gallery, Winters, CA., August 5-31, 2004.
One-person show, Golden Valley Financial, Sacramento, CA., Feb-March, 2006.
Featured show of 20 paintings, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento, April, 2006
[Solo show] Hamilton Club Gallery, Paterson New Jersey, November 4 2006 to Feb. 28 2007.
Featured show of about 20 paintings, Pheonix Gallery, Sacramento, CA. December, 2006.
One-person show, Rominger West Winery, Davis, CA., May 6-June 3, 2008 (about 50 paintings).
One-person show, 22 paintings, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento, CA., Nov.-Dec., 2008.
“Figurative Paintings,” about 30 paintings, Woodland [CA] Community College, February, 2010.
“Configurations”: Solo show of about 40 paintings, Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, August 6-September 3, 2010. Exhibition catalog.
“Myself Painting”: Solo show of about 50 paintings, University Art Gallery, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, February 24-March 25 2011. Exhibition catalog.
[Solo show] Rominger Winery Exhibition Room, Davis, CA., April 8-May 6 2011.
[Solo show] Crepeville Restaurant, Davis CA., July 30-August 30 2011.
Group Exhibitions:
Oil painting entry, Carnegie Institute Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1950. [National exhibition of the best works by high school art students].
Oil painting entry, Montgomery Ward Department Store Gallery, Chicago, 1952. [National exhibition of the best works by high school art students].
Two paintings on display for sale. Gayle Gallery, Chicago, 1957.
Three paintings on display for sale. Gayle Galley, Chicago, 1958.
Two paintings on display for sale, Gayle Gallery, Chicago, 1959.
“Winds Over the Rockies” exhibition, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, 1979.
Five paintings: “Banjo,” “Five Figures,” “Four Figures,” “Rest,” and “Gas Station,” Poet Jazz Paint Exhibition, Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego, California, April 2001.
[Five paintings on display] “Spirit Made Visible,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California, May 9-June 7, 1992. Show also curated by Clarence Major, included works by Robert Colescott, Raymond Saunders, Oliver Jackson, and Mary Lovelace O’Neal.
"Birds,” Families First, Davis, California, July 1992. [A John Natsoulas sponsored exhibition].
“All Creatures Great and Small,” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California, 1993.
[Five paintings] Kiln Theo Studio and Gallery, Winters, California, 1999. [Paintings on display for a year]
Three paintings: “Baseball,” “Blue Vase,” and “Two Figures,” The Charles Rowell Collection Exhibition, Texas A & M University Art Museum, College Station, Texas, June 2002.
“Sweet Betty,” John Natsoulas Gallery, October 2002.
[8 paintings] “Figuratively Speaking,” The Exploding Head Gallery, Sacramento CA., August 2004.
[22 paintings] “Small Works, Small Prices, The Main Street Gallery, Winters CA., November-December, 2004.
“Waiting,” and “The Mirror,” Poetry and its Arts: Bay Area Interactions 1954-2004, California Historical Society Museum, San Francisco, December 11 2004-April 16 2005.
[Landscapes] Blue Hills Gallery, Winters, CA., April-June, 2005.
New Artists Show, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento, CA. March, 2006.
“Art by Writers,” Paterson Art Museum, Paterson, New Jersey, April-May, 2006.
[Group Show] Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento, July, 2006.
“Urban Landscape,” The Exploding Head Gallery, July, 2006.
“The Interview,” Sacramento City Hall Exhibition, 2006. (Exploding Head venue)
“Roses,” Sacramento City Hall Exhibition, 2006. (Exploding Head venue)
“Interior,” in From Harlem to Paris: The Art and Travels of Herbert Gentry, Library Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, N. Y., Oct., 2007.
“The Writer’s Brush,” [Group show] Three paintings in a traveling show, 2007-2008 at the following galleries: Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery, LA. Anita Shapolsky Gallery, N,Y,, N,Y. Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge MA.
“Waiting,” 40 Acres Gallery, Sacramento, CA., July 2008.
Four paintings, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento, CA., March 2009: “Cindy,” “Working Women,” “The White Woman,” and Town Square” or Saturday Market,”sold at Gallery fundraiser to save the gallery. Whereabouts unknown.
“Woodland Farmland #1,” sold at auction, Oscar Night, Sacramento Capital City CCAF HIV Education and Prevention, Sacramento, CA., Feb., 22, 2009.
“The Escape,” “Rita and Friends,” “Yolanda,” et al on display at Watch City Brewing, Waltham, MA, 2010-2012.
Bibliography
Books:
“Self Portrait,” Book People Picture Themselves edited by Burt Britton, New York: Random House, 1976.
Emergency Exit by Clarence Major, New York: Fiction Collective, 1979. [Novel contains b & w reproductions of 23 paintings].
Cover art: reproduction of “Self Portrait,” My Amputations, a novel by Clarence Major, New York: Fiction Collective, 1986.
Cover art: reproduction of the painting “Birds,” Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958-1998, by Clarence Major, Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1998.
Clarence Major and His Art: Portraits of an African-American Postmodernist edited by Bernard W. Bell, Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. [Contains color plates of CM’s paintings].
Four ink drawings, each beginning a section of the book, Necessary Distance: Essays and Criticism by Clarence Major, Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2001.
Conversations with Clarence Major edited by Nancy Bunge, Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. {Extensive discussion of the relationship between painting and poetry}.
Cover art: Waiting for Sweet Betty, poems by Clarence Major, Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2002.
Cover art “Ball”: Such was The Season, a novel by Clarence Major, Louisiana State University Press, 2003. [Republished edition from the 1987 edition].
Cover art: “Foot Bridge” or “Old Bridge at Winters,” Govoreci Boben: Antologija Afrisko Ameriske Poezije po letu 1950 edited by Kristina Kocan [Polish anthology of African-American poetry]
Cover art: Myself Painting, poems by Clarence Major, Baton Rogue, Louisiana State University Press, 2008.
Configurations paintings by Clarence Major, Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, 2010. Exhibition catalog.
Myself Painting paintings by Clarence Major, University Gallery, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana, 2011. Exhibition catalog.
Periodicals:
Reproduction of fragment of a painting, Coercion # 2, 1959. [Art and literary magazine edited by Clarence Major for a brief time in the ‘50’s].
Reproductions of five paintings, par rapport: a journal of the humanities (winter, 1979). Rpt. in Emergency Exit.
Reproductions of four paintings, Black American Literature Forum (Volume 13, Number 2, 1979).
“Self Portrait,” The Literary Review, Volume 25, Number 4 (summer, 1982), 550.
Cover art: “Saturday Afternoon,” and eight paintings reproduced in color pages 49-56, African-American Review, Volume 28, Number 1 (spring 1994).
“The Double Vision of Clarence Major, Painter and Writer,” essay by Lisa C. Roney, African-American Review, Volume 28, Number 1 (1994).
Cover art: “Saturday Afternoon,” (detail) Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature (1998).
“Painter of Words, Author of Art,” “Country Boogie,” “In Love,” “Saturday Afternoon,” “Beachball,” “Black & White,” “Truck,” “On That Evening,” “Family Feeling, UC Davis Magazine, Volume 16, Number 3 (spring 1999). Four page spread with added details from the paintings.
Cover Art: “Blue City,” African-American Review, Volume 34, Number 4 (winter 2000).
Cover art: “Two Figures,” Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and Letters, Volume 24, Number 3 (summer 2001).
[1 painting] Art News Volume 101, Number 7 (Summer) 2002, p. 191. (“Waiting”).
[Listing] Art in America Annual (2004-2005 Guide to Museums, Galleries and Artists/Sourcebook to the U. S. Art World), 96.
[1 painting] Art News Volume 103, Number 11 (December 2004), p. 158. (“Daydreaming”).
[ 1 painting] American Art Collector, Volume 2, book 1, July 2005 (“The Garden”).
“Blue City,” VZ-Inter-Arts= A Trans-Genre Anthology, 2007.
“Carla,” “Yolanda,” Transition # 105, 2011, pages 106-108.
Documentary Films and Motion Picture:
“Juxtaposition: Clarence Major and His Art,” by Charlie Carroll with original music, “Unusual Textures,” composed by John Moyer, 1991. About 30 minutes.
“Double Consciousness: The Paintings of Clarence Major,” Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, September 4-October 28, 2001. About 30 minutes.
[Tribute to Clarence Major’s Paintings] Shackles, a motion picture starring D. L. Hugely, directed by Charles Winkler, produced by Irwin Winkler, Sony Pictures Studios, 2005.
KVIE-TV-Sacramento, Annual Art Auction, September 2005. (“Woman in White”) [Sold to Bill Hobbs, see below]
“Figurative Paintings Interview: Clarence Major,” video tape, Art Department, Woodland [CA] Community College, 2009.