Ed Clark, Winter Bitch, 1959

Ed Clark: I have a hard time with titling things. That one back there, is called Winter Bitch. That’s a hell of a name.

Narrator: The painter Edward Clark made this work after a five-year stay in Paris, including a particularly cold winter. In an interview with the artist Jack Whitten, Clark describes the city’s influence on his work. 

Ed Clark: I mean New York at that very moment was not considered the capital of the art world—it was Paris. 

Narrator: Clark began using a push broom instead of a brush to move paint around his canvases. He used them to create thick, gestural bands of color, like the blacks and pinks here. 

Ed Clark: The main thing that influenced me in France was the color—the color of the great artists there were more memorable than American color for some reason. There’s something about France—the angle of the sun or something. It gets into your unconscious a little bit. Color was the French thing.

Narrator: This interview is the copyright of BOMB Magazine, New Art Publications, its Contributors, and Edward Clark. All rights reserved. Edward Clark’s oral history by Jack Whitten can be read in its entirety at bombmagazine.org.