Clinton O'Callahan
Gallery
CLINTON CLEMENT O’CALLAHAN
American Artist in Paris
1890 – 1943
Clinton O’Callahan was born in Hartford,
Connecticut, on February 19, 1890, the tenth child of Irish immigrants Jeremiah
O’Callahan and Sarah Whalen. Jeremiah was
a publican, real estate trader and racehorse owner. Clinton’s
early interest in art was fostered in classes with Henry C. White, and subsequently under
the tutelage of Charles Noel Flagg. A friend
and contemporary of Clinton’s was Milton Avery, both of whom were encouraged by
Clinton’s father to pursue careers in fine art.
Clinton continued serious art training in Provincetown under Charles Hawthorne, a
prominent American artist who conducted a summer art academy on Cape Cod.
In 1917 Clinton enlisted in the United States Army and was immediately sent to France. He was gassed in January 1918 (World War I) and was
subsequently confined to various hospitals in Brittany for half a year. He was discharged in the United States in February
1919, and almost immediately returned to France as a civilian and an American artist. He was 29 years old.
He stayed in France, with Paris as his base, until 1939 when he took the last boat
home from Lisbon before World War II started.
Clinton O’Callahan became involved in American and European artists’ groups
(American Association in Paris; Society des Artistes Independents; Society of Connecticut
Artists). He studied for four years at the
Academie Colarossi under Charles Guerin, and at the Grand Cheumiere. He began exhibiting at the Salon d’Automne in
1921 and continued to do so annually for over a decade; he exhibited at the Salon de
Tuileries in 1923, 1924, 1928 and 1929; and at the Salon des Independents every year from
1922 to 1933. In 1923 one of Clinton’s
major paintings, “At The Bath”, was accepted for the Carnegie International
Exposition in Pittsburgh and cited by Augustus John as “the most significant picture
in the exhibition”. Clinton also
had one man and group shows in New York (Babcock Galleries in 1924, 1927, 1929, 1930) and
at the Hartford Athenaeum. One of
Clinton’s paintings, “La Femme Enceinte” sold in New York for $2000 in
1929. Clinton traveled and painted in the
south of France, the Balearic Islands, Britain and North Africa.
During the 1920’s Clinton O’Callahan was written about extensively in Paris and
was projected as the most promising American artist in France. In 1926, Clinton and several American artists
founded the “Groupe des Peintres et Sculpteurs Americains a Paris” and first
exhibited their collective work at the Galerie Durand-Ruel.
They exhibited annually and by 1929, at their exhibition at Galerie M.
Knoedler, they had become widely recognized.
In 1932 Clinton married an English nurse, Monica Wray Bliss, who was working at the
American Hospital in Paris. He and his wife
traveled to Soller, Majorca in the Balearic Islands for a period of painting and rest, and
there – in July 1933 – their son Juan was born.
Relatively few of Clinton O’Callahan’s
paintings can be accounted for. His son Juan, and Juan and Louise’s children,
own about 120 paintings and drawings – some are unfinished sketches.
Clinton’s widow Monica may have given away a few dozen paintings to close friends in
South Africa when she lived there in the late 1940’s and 1950’s.
Clinton’s American relatives and friends in Connecticut and New York may have
acquired several dozen work over three decades, and after his death in Gloucester,
Massachusetts in 1943. Clinton certainly must have produced between 500 and 800
finished oils and watercolors during his lifetime career, besides sketches and
drawings. Clinton’s widow Monica felt that a number of paintings that were
stored in Paris during the war presumably disappeared. There were a number of large
oils of a series of racehorse scenes Clinton did at Longchamps, and of still-lifes and
portraits, which the family has seen photos of or news-clip references to, which are
unaccounted for.
It is also believed that Clinton sold relatively few of his paintings during his lifetime.
There were a few recorded major sales, as noted earlier. Field Marshall
Ferdinand Foch acquired three of Clinton’s paintings, and other sales involving high
prices for the 1920’s were recorded in articles and reviews. However, there
still remains the mystery as to the whereabouts of perhaps some 300 or 400 Clinton
O’Callahan paintings (oils and watercolors).
Any person having news of Clinton O’Callahan paintings may send information and
details to the email address noted on this website homepage for Juan O’Callahan.
The information would be extremely useful for updating the Catalogue Raisonne of
Clinton O’Callahan, and his family would be most grateful.
A few of Clinton O’Callahan’s paintings are depicted below. They are not for sale. The family intends to have a retrospective exhibition of Clinton’s work in the next few years, perhaps in his hometown Hartford, or in a venue like Williamstown. It will depend, to some extent, on success or failure in tracing additional examples of Clinton’s art, and their owners’ locations – and whether those owners would be willing to loan their pieces for such a retrospective exhibition.
Ted Hendrickson has photographed many of Clinton's' works
featured on his website. During the past twenty years, Ted Hendrickson's photographs have
explored the nature of landscape as image. Ranging from the man made scene of the built
environment to the wooded and coastal landscape that comprises what is left of
"Nature" in Southern New England, Hendrickson's personal views can be
simultaneously poetic, comic, tragic, or mysterious. The artist believes we should attend
to and celebrate the natural landscape we have remaining. His most recent work has been an
attempt to find a visual language that fits the description of the local landscape,
intimate in scale and subtle in structure. An ongoing project since 1996 has been the
"Fly Fishing for Striped Bass Series", a visual diary of sorts that chronicles
involvement with the pursuit of this saltwater game fish, connecting with the traditions
of visual artists and fly fishing.
A native of New London, Connecticut, Ted Hendrickson studied photography at the University
of Connecticut with William E. Parker where he received a BA and MFA degree, and at Rhode
Island School of Design with Harry Callahan where he received a Master's degree in art
education. Hendrickson's work has been featured nationally in numerous one- person and
group exhibitions. He received a commission from the Connecticut Commission on the arts to
photograph the towns of New London County for permanent exhibition at the New London
County Court House. His work is included in many prestigious public and private and
corporate collections.
| Lear Oil on canvas 22 X 27 1930 Exhibited Galerie Cambaceres, Paris 1959 |
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Mackerel Boat (Provincetown) Oil on canvas 27 X 35 1919 Exhibited Hartford Atheneum 1924 (Exhibition "Paintings by Clinton O'Callahan") |
| Self Portrait Oil on canvas 21 X 17 1921 |
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Rue Vaugirard (Paris) Oil on canvas 24 X 20 1921 Exhibited at Salon d'Automne 1921; Babcock Galleries NY 1924; Hartford Atheneum 1924 (articles in Saturday Evening Post 10/4/24; NY Times 10/5/24; Hartford Courant 10/6/24, 12/8/24) |
| Houseboat At Pont Marie, II (Paris) Oil on canvas 25 X 32 1922 Exhibited at Salon d'Automne 1922; Babcock galleries 1924; Hartford Atheneum 1924; Galerie Cambeceres 1959 |
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