(1912 - 2014)
Derek Clarke was born in Longthorpe, near Peterborough, and studied at the Slade School of Art, London, between 1931 and 1935. Prior to the War he lived and painted for a year in the rural landscape of Connemara, in County Galway, Ireland. While serving in the Army between 1939 and 1945 he was wounded in Tunisia, after which he spent a year painting during his sick leave. After returning to Connemara briefly after the War, he eventually settled in Edinburgh in 1947 where he taught painting at the city’s College of Art. During a period of over forty years he lived and exhibited work in Edinburgh, notably at the Scottish Gallery up to the 1990s; and became a member of several British art societies including the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (1976) and Associate member of the Royal Scottish Academy (1989). In 1992 Clarke and his second wife moved to the wild and windswept area of Sutherland in northern Scotland, where they lived and painted for two years. Clarke’s work can be found in a number of private and public collections in Scotland and England. In January 2013, the Royal Scottish Academy held a celebratory exhibition of the work of Derek Clarke, who at the age of 100, was heralded as their ‘oldest current member’. He was appointed MBE shortly before his death in 2014.
