Timothy James Clark (born 12 April 1943) is a British

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

and writer. He taught art history in a number of universities in England and the United States, including

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Clark has been influential in developing the field of art history, examining modern paintings as an articulation of the social and political conditions of modern life. His orientation is distinctly leftist, and he has often referred to himself as a Marxist.

Life and work

Clark attended

Bristol Grammar School Bristol Grammar School (BGS) is a 4–18 Mixed-sex education, mixed, Private schools in the United Kingdom, private day school in Bristol, England. It was founded in 1532 by Royal Charter for the teaching of 'good manners and literature', endowe ...

. He completed his undergraduate studies at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, obtaining a first-class honours degree in 1964. He received his PhD in art history from the

Courtauld Institute of Art The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. The art collection is known particularly for ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in 1973. He lectured at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

1967–69 and then at Camberwell College of Arts as a senior lecturer, 1970–74. During this time he was also a member of the British Section of the

Situationist International The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

, from which he was expelled along with the other members of the English section. He was also involved in the group King Mob. In 1973 he published two books based on his PhD dissertation: ''The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848–1851'' and ''Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the Second French Republic, 1848–1851.'' He taught at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

in 1974–76. In 1976, he became a founding member of the Caucus for Marxism and Art of the

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understan ...

. Clark returned to Britain in 1976 when he was appointed professor and head of the Department of Fine Art at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. In 1980 Clark joined the Department of Fine Arts at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, which angered some of the more conservative, connoisseurship-oriented faculty members, especially the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

art historian Sydney Freedberg, with whom he had a public feud. In 1982 he published an essay, "

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...

's Theory of Art", critical of prevailing Modernist theory, which prompted a notable and pointed exchange with Michael Fried. This exchange contributed to the debate between formalist and social histories of art. Clark's works have taken art history in a new direction, away from traditional preoccupations with

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

and

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

. His books regard modern paintings as expressions of sociopolitical conditions in modern life. In 1988 he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held the George C. and Helen N. Pardee Chair as Professor of Modern Art until his retirement. In 1991 Clark was awarded the College Art Association's Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award. Notable students include Thomas E. Crow,

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the Architecture criticism, architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing and homelessness, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infr ...

, John O'Brian and Jonathan Weinberg. As a member of

Retort In a chemistry laboratory, a retort is a device used for distillation or dry distillation of substances. It consists of a sphere, spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heat ...

, a Bay Area-based collective of radical intellectuals, he co-authored the book ''Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War'', published by Verso Books in 2005. In 2005 Clark received a

Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, commonly known as the Mellon Foundation, is a New York City-based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger ...

Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2006 he received an honorary degree from the

. In 2007, he was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

. He and his wife Anne Wagner, who also taught art history at Berkeley, retired in 2010 and moved to London. He continues to be active as a guest lecturer, author, and now as a poet. His book ''Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica'' is based on his Mellon Lectures in Fine Art delivered in spring 2009. His most recent book is ''If These Apples Should Fall: Cézanne and the Present'' (2022). In 2020, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on ''Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come'' at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

Critique of Clark

In "World Upside Down," Belgian social theorist Daniel Zamora critiques Clark's late affirmation of Cold War liberal interpretive politics in his 2024 collection ''On Breugel''. Clark in his 80s maintains the fatalistic Counter-Enlightenment postwar consensus that bridged emancipatory liberalism and socialism back to Antienlightenment inequality, proscribing democratic progress to most nations. Clark thus interprets the sixteenth-century work of Bruegel as prefiguring the Cold War romantic virtue of confining "no future" leftists to mocking the left's past progressive Enlightenment pretenses, and to immediate survival, constraining their attentions to the tasks of living day to day.Clark, TJ. 2012. "For a Left with No Future" New Left Review 74, Mar/Apr. Zamora suggests rather that Breugel rejected

psychologism Psychologism is a family of philosophical positions, according to which certain psychological facts, laws, or entities play a central role in grounding or explaining certain non-psychological facts, laws, or entities. The word was coined by Joh ...

and that his work does not invite alienation, condescension, and dissolution into pure culture, which Zamora identifies as preoccupations of the Austro-Hungarian emigre left.

Publications

* ''Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. , trad Fr. :Image du peuple: Gustave Courbet et la révolution de 1848, Les Presses du Réel, 2007. * ''The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848–1851.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. . trad Fr. :Le Bourgeois Absolu – Les Artistes Et La Politique En France De 1848 À 1851, Art édition, 1992. , (projet) Presses du réel, . * ''The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985. * Also published at pp. 467–488 of book Tom McDonough (2004) (Editor) ''Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents''. The

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

(1 April 2004) 514 pages , trad. Fr. :Pourquoi l'art ne peut pas tuer l'internationale situationniste, Egrégores, 2006, * ''Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. * ''Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War.'' With Iain Boal, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts. London: Verso, 2005. * ''The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing.'' Yale University Press, 2006.
''The Painting of Postmodern Life?''
Barcelona: MACBA, 2009. * ''Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica''. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013. * ''Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2018. * ''If These Apples Should Fall: Cézanne and the Present''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2022. * ''T.J. Clark on Bruegel''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2024.

References

External links

Timothy J. Clark, noted art historian, awarded Mellon Foundation grant

UC Berkeley faculty page
* Rykov A. V.br>Absent Look. Edouard Manet and Timothy Clark’s Theory of Modernism. Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Искусствоведение, 10(2), 266-273.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, T. J. 1943 births Living people Academics from Bristol British art historians People educated at Bristol Grammar School Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art Academics of the University of Essex Academics of the University of Leeds Harvard University faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Academics of Camberwell College of Arts Situationists College Art Association Members of the American Philosophical Society