Merton Clivette

Merton Clive Cook (11 June 1868 - 8 May 1931), also known as Merton Clivette, was an American painter, magician, writer, vaudevillian and trapeze artist who spent most of his in front life traveling the world entertaining since settling in New York to paint permanently. As a entirely highly regarded American artiste of the to the lead 20th century by his peers (including Maurice Sterne, Waldo Pierce, Edward Bruce, Marcel Sauvage and Michel Georges-Michel of Paris, among others), his style can be identified later than the American expressionist movement. Clivette is also known to be one of several artists who most defined the Ashcan veracity period in New York at that time. Clivette was demonstrated artistic gift painting in a forgive flowing express rarely painting higher than a parentage twice. During the 1920s his style evolved as he moved from truth toward expressionism eventually moving upon to figurative and the abstract.

Clivette was born in 1868 in Portage, Wisconsin but grew happening in the Wyoming Territory. In this teenage years he left home to participate in a Wild West feign which toured the Northwest US and during his time in it he was able to display his skills as an acrobat, juggler and amateur magician. He honed these skills into what would higher be a Vaudeville touring show. Clivette moved to Seattle, then San Francisco in the late 1880s. Clivette was a student of Auguste Rodin from 1889-1890 and even painted a portrait of Auguste Rodin, said to be the greatest of everything portraits of the sculptor.

He started his own circus tour in 1890 and then joined the Orpheum Circuit to tour gone them from 1891-1900. At this times he officially adopted the name Clivette, and billed himself "Clivette, the Man in Black". He toured Europe in 1893, and Far East in 1894. He married a entertainer Catherine Parker Chamberlain, in New York in 1896, and her acts were incorporated into his show. They toured America, Europe and the East, until 1907 following a daughter, Juanita (also spelled Juanyta) Clivette, was born.

The relations of Clivettes moved to New York, where Merton gave in the works his stage career and began to paint full time. Merton was an supple part of the player community there, participating in symposiums and workshops at the Art Students League, being a member of the Society of Independent Artists, and befriending other artists. The entire relatives was a share of the animated Bohemian moving picture of Greenwich Village in the teens and 20’s. From 1918 to 1923 Merton and Catherine ran an early store "Bazaar de Junk" on 1 Sheridan Square, telling outlandish stories just about their products to the visitors. In 1920 they along with announced that their daughter, Juanita, ever in the past the age of 5 claimed to be a reincarnation of Sappho, with the whole version catching the attention of the press, and Juanita starting to publicly get into her poems. Meanwhile her father's comport yourself was frequently exhibited during the 1920s from Los Angeles to Paris, and New York in-between. Clivette died in 1931, at the age of 62, in New York, after "a long illness".

Clivette modeled himself in the look of Ashcan School artists (including Robert Henri) utilizing realist subjects. Clivette used the Chiaroscuro style in both lighthearted and dark juxtapositions and directionless but forceful brushwork. This technique links him and the Ashcan school. These were thesame to Robert Henri and supplementary realist painters. Clivette was capably known for his Vamp series which Describe show-business ladies in Burlesque attires. Contrasting these Vamp paintings Clivette painted numerous Native American portraits. Clivette inevitably moved away from this realistic look to a more untouched fashion in the vein of Chaïm Soutine. Over period he drifted away from realism toward expressionism. His later sham turned toward figurativism, and eventually becoming abstract.

Clivette created his expressionist works painting next confidence past many strokes in succession; he utilized his skills he speculative as an acrobat to involve the brushes in imitation of precision. In his grander works, the marks looked in imitation of they were created using his collection body. This style was one of his greatest strengths. Over time new New York artists such as Franz Kline, picked up upon this new type of feint painting to make their mark. During the 1920s New York art locale, Clivette was highly thought of and his art was with ease received. George S. Hellman writes that Clivette was the greatest American Painter ever after seeing Clivette's "Outriding the Blizzard" painting. Hellman was in view of that convinced of Clivette's genius that he purchased a number of paintings from him and encouraged new accomplished New York painters — Maurice Sterne, Paul Manship, Edward Bruce — to purchase paintings from Clivette as well. Sterne himself was surprised at this unknown artiste who he thought painted self-portraits similarly to Paul Cézanne but bearing in mind less control.

To this reduction is a insinuation from Henry Rankin Poore's book "Modern Art, Why, What and How" which talks very nearly Clivette's impact including this Paris show. He begins, "Although France may allegation the bank account of introducing avant-garde art to the world it is not generally known that since Paul Cézanne had sponsored cubism and Henri Matisse freedom, an American citizen was lively out kindred theories. Merton Clivette, although of distant French extraction, has been Americanized through generations past 1630."

Additionally it notes, "Only recently an invitation came for a large exhibition of his works in Paris, and had those pictures been seen there taking into consideration first produced, Henri Matisse would have had to undertake that his idea had already been preempted. The French Government, through its Director of Fine Arts, selected an example from this exhibition which is destined for Luxembourg. The critical press of Paris extolled the newcomer from across the sea. It is quite proper next that the makers of Modern Art should have an effect on up and taking office Clivette a place in contrast to them."

Clivette joins six additional painters as the solitary American unadulterated a special article in the book, "Selections from the Collection of George S. Hellman", along bearing in mind Picasso, Cezanne, Matisse, Derain, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. Selected paintings attach Rushing Waters, Flowers in a Pot, Still Life, Walt Whitman, Indian in a Canoe, Toucan, Seascape, Small Seascape, and Sunset in the middle of others.