Pierre Clerk

Pierre Clerk (1928) is an American artist who lives and works in New York and France. He draws his artistic references from the «painting with scissors» collage works by Matisse, the cubism of Picasso, the forms of Brancusi and van Doesburg and the Neo-Plasticism movement driven by Mondrian.

Actively part of the buzzing New York artistic scene in the 1970's, Pierre Clerk's singular works are based on a very personal spatially graphic language - often going against the current of the contemporary trends of his time. While at the end of 1960's abstract expressionist painters triumph, Pierre Clerk focused on a rational approach.

And if the work of the artist is much more purely formal than that of Leger for example, for whom he has a profound admiration, he retains from the master's research the interest in colour that is at the same time volume, form, and capable of transforming bodies into cogs of the great chromatic mechanics of a work.

The painter looks to multiply and diffract plans. If Clerk is touched by Newman or Rothko's painting, it is not for the expressivity of their gesture, but for their ability to play on depth by working on colour.

Known as a painter as revealed by MOMA's 9th New Talent exhibition in 1956, his geometrical abstraction can also be found in his trompe-l’oeil sculptures and molecular structures of the 2000's, often reaching monumental proportions. Two major installations led this evolution in his work : Waterside Plaza (1977), supported by New York Public Art Council realized in Manhattan's East River and City Candy (1983), Toledo, Ohio.

Patterns echo from the paintings to sculptures giving the work an autonomous architectural identity. It has been said that Pierre Clerk paints like a sculptor and sculpts like a painter.

Solo Exhibitions  

2020-2021
"Paintings-Sculptures", Francis Maere Fine Arts Gallery, Ghent, Belgium

2017
"Works", Galerie Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Paris, France

2014
"The Long View", Galerie Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Paris, France

2013
"Pierre Clerk, Peintures, Sérigraphies, Sculptures", Salle des Dominicains, Château Canon La Gaffelière, Saint-Émilion, France

2013
"Driven to Abstraction", Musée Gajac, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France (France 3 Aquitaine on Dailymotion)

2012
"Out of his mind", Galerie Crone, Berlin, Allemagne

2012
"Out of his mind", Galerie Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, France

2011
«Couleur, forme, espace», Base Sous Marine, Bordeaux, France

2010
"70 / 10", Galerie Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, France

2009
"Constructs", Galerie Thomas Bernard - Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, France

2003
"Pierre Clerk", Aurelio Atefanini Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Firenza, Italy

1989
"Pierre Clerk: selected works", Square One Gallery, Block Island, RI

1987
"Pierre Clerk: cutout reliefs, recent sculptures", DiLaurenti Gallery, New York City

1981
"Pierre Clerk: oeuvres récentes, Painting and sclupture", Centre culturel canadien, Paris, France

1978
"Cutout Reliefs", Recent Sculptures, DiLaurenti Gallery, New York

1978
"Œuvres Récentes", Centre culturel canadien, Paris, France

1977-1978
"Rio Bec, Ossokmanuan, Double Occupancy and Untilted, Monumental Outdoor Sculpture Program, Public Art Fund, New York

1977-1978
"Pierre Clerc: paintings,tapestries,grapics" :

Part I: sponsored by USIA, traveling exhibit, Quito, Mexico,Guatemala, New Delhi, Islamabad, Kabul, Tehran (American Center)

Part II: sponsored by USIA, traveling exhibit, Tokyo, Hong Kong (Honk Hong Art Center), Singapore, Manila (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Wellington

1977
"PIERRE CLERK AT WATERSIDE", Outdoor monumental sculpture exhibit sponsored by The Public Art Fund, NYC

1976-1977
"NY Pierre Clerk", Everson Museum of Art[22],Syracuse, New York

1972
Pierre Clerk, Galerie Moos,[23] Montréal, Canada; Gimpel Weitzenhoffer, New York

1971
Gimpel Hanover, Zurich, Switzerland; Gimpel Fils, London, England

1965-1967
Siegelaub Gallery, New York

1958
Il Cavallino Galleria, Venice, Italy; Cittadella Gallery, Ascona, Switzerland

1957
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Beno Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland; New Gallery, New York

1956
Galleria Totti, Milan, Italy

1955
Numero Galleria, Florence, Italy