Clyde Singer was born in Malvern, Ohio in 1908. After graduating from high school Singer decided to apprentice himself to a sign painter. With his savings from that job, he was able to enroll, first, in the Columbus Museum of Art School, and then as a scholarship student at the Art Students League, where he studied with Benton, Curry, and Miller, among others. He has since sought to capture, as they had, what he calls the "juice of life," everyday incidents and personalities candidly recorded in all their victories and flaws. Although his style is that of a realist, he has brought to it a gently satirical eye that heightens movement and color to focus our attention on his subjects' small self-revelations; the body language by which we tell more than we want, or sometimes should, about our selves.
Singer worked primarily in oil and watercolor, but explored many other mediums throughout his lengthy career. Singer’s early work dealt with scenes of small-town life in Ohio, but later shifted focus to more urban settings, capturing contemporary scenes of the time. In 1940, Singer became assistant director at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, and, except for military service during World War II, remained there until his death in 1999. In his sixty-five years as a working artist, Singer created well over 3000 paintings and is best known for his depictions of the American scene. Stylistically, he is classified as a Regionalist, and is also considered ”the last Ashcan artist”.
Singer’s sense of emotion and color shine through in his paintings. Capturing movement and expression, his figures feel engaged, yet seemingly frozen in time, clearly reflective of the environments, the values, and the unique times in which they lived. Even his sketches and studies evoke a concern for his subjects’ personalities. Being able to develop such a subtle, yet striking contrast between serenity in atmosphere and serious, almost historical acuteness makes Clyde Singer one of the most sensitive and influential artists not only within Ohio, but across the whole of the United States.
Singer’s work is part of the permanent collections of many museums throughout the United States, as well as many private collections. Various works has been exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute, The Whitney Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, the National Academy of Design, the Massillon Museum, the Canton Museum of Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art.
Biography contains excerpts from Clyde Singer’s America by M.J. Albacete, as well as Lazar’s Art Gallery Online.
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