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WILLIAM HENRY CLAPP

1879 - 1954

BiographyWilliam Henry Clapp was an American/ Canadian Impressionist painter. Born of American parents in Montreal, he went to school in Oakland, CA but returned to study art in Montreal. In 1904 he went to Paris, where he spent four years studying, painting, and participating in the major salons. He particiapated in many exhibitions then sailed to Cuba for a two year study. In 1917 he returned to Oakland and taught life drawing at the California School of Arts and Crafts. In 1918 he was asked to fill in as a curator in the Oakland Gallery, later the Oakland Museum.

Clapp was among a company of distinguished artists who during the 1920s and 1930s were prominent in establishing the art styles of California. He received rigorous training in the finest academies of France and was a brilliant student of pigments and artist's materials. He also was a conservator and a writer. Paul Mills, Curator of the Oakland Art Museum, writing of impressionist and post-impressionist "Society of Six" who flourished during the twenties said of Clapp: "One cannot look at any of the work of this group without a sense of the joy, spontaneity, and vigor which they brought to their work. Clapp was more thoughtful, more meticulous in his work than perhaps the others, but he had a profound knowledge of optics, of color mixtures, and of aesthetic theory which the others did not share."

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