Thomas B. Clarke

Thomas Benedict Clarke (1848–1931), was an art collector from New York City.

Portrait of Thomas B. Clarke, by Charles Frederic Ulrich, 1884

Biography

He was born in New York City as the son of Dr. George Washington Clarke (1816–1908), headmaster of the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute of New York. He finished his education at his father's institution and started off as a businessman in linen and lace manufacturing, but also became a patron of American contemporary art.[1] He married Fannie Eugenia Morris in 1871 and became a patron of leading artists of the Hudson River School in the 1870s, including George Inness and Albert Bierstadt.[2] In 1883, his collection was shown as one of the first exhibitions at the American Art Association.

He also began collecting porcelain, and donated some to Union League Club of New York while he was chairman of the art committee there.[3] He retired from the linen business in 1888 to become a full-time art dealer and was an art advisor and agent for J. P. Morgan.[4]

He bought the premises of the Suffolk Hunt Club in East Hampton, Long Island in 1917 as a summer home, while transforming his new residence in New York into an art gallery, today the home of the Collectors Club of New York. His daughter Grace, who married the equestrian painter Richard Newton Jr., had been a member there until her death in 1915, and Clarke published her books with illustrations by her husband in 1917.[5] He renamed his Long Island residence "Lindenland".[6]

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References
  1. Clarke, Thomas B. (Thomas Benedict), 1848-1931 on Winterthur.org
  2. Catalogue of the Thomas B. Clarke collection of American pictures, 1891, by Thomas B. Clarke in the RKD
  3. "Art Gossip" column 12 March 1911, The Sun (New York) newspaper article on Fultonhistory.org
  4. Clarke, Thomas B. (Thomas Benedict), 1848-1931 record at the Frick Collection's Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America
  5. A Hunting Alphabet by Grace Clarke Newton, 1917, on Gutenberg books
  6. The Suffolk Hunt Club in Hayground by Julie Green
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