Woodcut on paper, 1986. 558x431 mm; 22x17 inches, full margins. Singed, titled, dated and numbered 9/14 in pencil, lower margin.
Melvin Clark was trained at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit where he was born. Clark moved to New York in the 1980s, where he worked as a printmaker at the Lower East Side Printshop and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. He also executed public murals for various sites in the region, including a large mosaic mural at Newark Penn Station. Much of his work focuses on jazz history and musicians, many of whom he came to know from being a regular at jazz clubs around New York in the 1980s and 1990s. Clark described the impact of jazz upon his art: "I was able to see live, all the living legends of Jazz. ... I often use musical themes in my art. The energy of live musical performances is what I strive to capture in my compositions." His artworks are in many notable collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Modern African Arts Gallery, Amsterdam, the Printmaking Workshop, New York, the Lower East Side Printshop, New York, the Detroit Board of Education, and the Pehl Collection, Eldersburg, MD.
