In a career spanning six decades, artist, poet, and activist Peter Clarke produced paintings, drawings, and prints that depicted the everyday lives and social and political struggles of South Africa’s marginalized communities under Apartheid. His work has been exhibited in South Africa and abroad; in 2011, he was the subject of a career retrospective at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg and the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town. Clarke briefly studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, but as a so-called “colored” student (the category assigned Black students at the time), he was not allowed to enroll full-time under South Africa’s racial laws. He continued his studies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and the Atelier Nord in Oslo. Clarke’s flattened, angular style drew influence from Mexican muralism, German Expressionism, and Japanese woodcuts, while his interest in foregrounding African heritage and Black contemporary life welcomes comparisons to African American artists like Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence.
