From the Author
I owe a great debt of gratitude to Clive and Mary Clark, Paraskeva Clark’s son and daughter-in-law, for giving so generously of their time, showing me works of art and other materials, and answering myriad questions. Panya Clark Espinal was also very helpful and offered valuable insights into her grandmother’s life and work.
My research was greatly facilitated by librarian Donald Rance (Art Gallery of Ontario), archivist Philip Dombowsky (National Gallery of Canada), and the staff of Library and Archives Canada. Many private collectors and curators across Canada sent me information or showed me works by Paraskeva Clark in their possession or under their care. I would especially like to acknowledge Gregory Humeniuk and Cindy Brouse (AGO), and Christopher Davidson and Jacqueline Warren (NGC). Christopher Varley helped connect me with collectors of Clark’s work. Writer Maria Lakman and her husband, Sergey Plotnikov, of Ottawa generously undertook some Russian translating for me. I am grateful to Professor Donna Orwin, FRSC, Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto, for her advice about the transliteration of Russian names.
I sincerely appreciate having been given the opportunity to research and write about Paraskeva Clark for the ACI by Sara Angel and Anna Hudson. I was extremely fortunate to work with first-rate editor Rosemary Shipton, who cheered me on my way. I am also grateful to executive editor Kendra Ward and image research associate Stephanie Burdzy for their invaluable contributions. Dominque Denis and Eve Renaud skillfully produced the French translation, and I congratulate Sam Tse and Simone Wharton for the very handsome design of this book.
From the Art Canada Institute
This online art book was made possible thanks to its Title Sponsor: The McLean Foundation. Much gratitude goes to the Founding Sponsor for the Canadian Online Art Book Project: BMO Financial Group.
The Art Canada Institute gratefully acknowledges its other sponsors for the 2016–2017 Season: Aimia, Rosamond Ivey, Kiki and Ian Delaney, The Scott Griffin Foundation, The McLean Foundation, and TD Bank.
Thanks also to the Art Canada Institute Founding Patrons: Jalynn H. Bennett, the Butterfield Family Foundation, David and Vivian Campbell, Albert E. Cummings, Kiki and Ian Delaney, the Fleck Family, Roger and Kevin Garland, the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation, The Scott Griffin Foundation, Michelle Koerner and Kevin Doyle, Phil Lind, Sarah and Tom Milroy, Nancy McCain and Bill Morneau, Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan, Sandra L. Simpson, Pam and Mike Stein, Robin and David Young, and Sara and Michael Angel; as well as its Founding Partner Patrons: The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and Partners in Art.
The ACI gratefully acknowledges the support and assistance of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Alicia Boutilier and Jennifer Nicholl); Art Gallery of Armenia; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Lesley Golding); Art Gallery of Hamilton (Christine Braun); Art Gallery of Ontario (Amy Furness, Tracy Mallon-Jensen, Marilyn Nazar, Liana Radvak, Joe Venturella); Art Gallery of Windsor (Nicole McCabe, Jaclyn Meloche); Art Museum at the University of Toronto (Justine Kicek, Heather Pigat); Art Museum of Georgia (David Lordkipanidze); Bethune Memorial House (Scott Davidson); Canadian War Museum (Susan Ross); Carleton University Art Gallery (Sandra Dyck); E.J. Pratt Library, Victoria College, University of Toronto; Estate of Walter Yarwood (Chip Yarwood); Faculty of Music Library, University of Toronto; Government of Ontario Art Collection (Lani Wilson); Harvard Art Museums (Isabella Donadio); John A. Libby Fine Art (Maria Hazel); Latvian National Art Museum (Iveta Derkusova); Library and Archives Canada (Marie Julie Hyppolite, Lynn Lafontaine, Suzanne Lemaire); MTG Hawke’s Bay Tai Ahuriri (Nicola Zaaiman); Museum London (Janette Cousins Ewan); National Gallery of Canada (Raven Amiro, Philip Dombowsky); Ottawa Art Gallery (Michelle Gewurtz, Jennifer Gilliland); Pegasus Gallery of Canadian Art (Monique Beaudry); The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Alessandra Cirelli); Shapiro Auctions (Alexandra Dubodel); SODRAC (Stéphane Aleixandre); Sotheby’s London (Frances Asquith); State Russian Museum (Maria Rudenskaya); Tom Thomson Art Gallery (David Huff); Toronto Public Library; Waddington’s Auctioneers and Appraisers (Jamie Long, Linda Rodeck); Winchester Galleries (Elizabeth Levinson); Winnipeg Art Gallery (Nicole Fletcher); and Clive Clark, Mary Clark, Panya Clark Espinal, Christopher Dew, Javier Espinal, Ashot Galstyan, Toni Hafkenscheid, Becca Lemire, John H. Pollock, Rob Pollock, Carol-Ann Ryan, Paul Sabourin, and Irina Smirmova.
Image Sources
Every effort has been made to secure permissions for all copyrighted material. The Art Canada Institute will gladly correct any errors or omissions.
Credit for Cover Image
Paraskeva Clark, Maintenance Jobs in the Hangar # 6, Trenton RCAF, Station, 1945. (See below for details.)
Credit for Banner Images
Biography: Paraskeva Clark seated on a wicker chair, c. 1932–33. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e006078599).
Key Works: Presents from Madrid, 1937. (See below for details.)
Significance & Critical Issues: Self-portrait with Concert Program, 1942. (See below for details.)
In a Toronto Streetcar, 1944, reproduced in Canadian Review of Music and Art 3, no. 9-10 (1944). Toronto: Canadian Review Pub. Co. Photo credit: Stephanie Burdzy.
“Street Scenes: Toronto,” New World Illustrated (September 1941). Illustrations by Paraskeva Clark. Text by Graham McInnes. Courtesy of the Toronto Reference Library.
Art and Society: A Marxist Analysis (Critics Group No. 3), by Georgi V. Plekhanov, translated from the Russian with an Introduction by Granville Hicks, New York (1936). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. Photo credit: Stephanie Burdzy.
Bathing the Red Horse, 1912, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Collection of Tretyakov State Gallery, Moscow (Zh-375).
“Charming Torontonian,” Toronto Mail and Empire (August 1931). Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (1995-019 DAP.) Photo credit: Stephanie Burdzy.
Draft Set Design for Tableau I of Petroushka: “Admiralty Square, 1830. A Sunny Morning in Winter,” 1911, by Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois. Private collection.
Group Portrait of the Mir Iskusstva Artists. A Study for an Unpainted Picture, 1916–20, by Boris Kustodiev. Collection of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
Apartment of Murray Adaskin and Phillip Clark, 40 Huntley Street, Toronto. Modernist sculpture Paraskeva Allegri sold to Adaskin and Clark in Paris at Maison DIM, c. 1929. Photograph by Philip Clark. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (1995-019 DAP). Photo credit: Stephanie Burdzy.
Morning. Bathing Women, 1917, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Collection of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (1095).
Paraskeva Clark’s self-portrait in Charles Comfort’s studio guest book, painted and signed March 12, 1936. Fonds Charles Fraser Comfort, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (1992-692 DAP). Courtesy of Christine Boyanoski.
Paraskeva Allegri and her son Ben Allegri, in Chatou, Paris, 1930. Private collection, Toronto. Courtesy of Clive and Mary Clark.
Paraskeva and Philip Clark in Canada, 1931. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e006078601). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/The Brechin Group Inc.
Paraskeva Clark, c. 1936. Photograph by Charles Fraser Comfort. Fonds Charles Fraser Comfort, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa.
Paraskeva Clark and her sons, Ben and Clive, c. 1933. Private collection, Toronto. Courtesy of Clive and Mary Clark.
Paraskeva Clark in her studio with her painting of a blind woman receiving help on a Toronto streetcar, c. 1949. Photograph by Marcel Ray. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e002712782). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/The Brechin Group Inc.
Paraskeva Clark painting Sketch for Tadoussac, Boats in Dry Dock, 1944. Private collection, Toronto. Courtesy of Clive and Mary Clark.
Paraskeva Clark’s father, Advey Plistik, c. 1923. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e002712775). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/The Brechin Group Inc.
Paraskeva Clark’s first husband, Oreste Allegri Jr., 1923. Private collection, Toronto. Courtesy of Clive and Mary Clark.
Portrait of Melita Cholokashvili, 1927, by Savely Abramovich Sorine. Art Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi.
Revista Nova Iberia I (January 1937), edited by Pere Català-Pic, Barcelona: Commisariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
Scarf bearing the emblem of the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo), c. 1936–37. Courtesy of Scott Davidson, Bethune Memorial House.
Self-portrait, 1918, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. Collection of the Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg (2400).
Signed photograph sent to Paraskeva Clark from Dr. Norman Bethune. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e006580511). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/The Brechin Group Inc.
Spanish factory workers, c. 1936. Photograph by Joan P. Fabregas, reprinted in Nova Iberia I, (January 1937).
Standing Nude, n.d., by Vasili Shukhaev. Private collection. Courtesy of Shapiro Auctions, New York.
Still Life, 1921, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan (7068).
The artist and her son Ben at the Clark’s apartment on Lonsdale Road, Toronto, c. 1933. Fonds Paraskeva and Philip T. Clark, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa (e006078600). Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada/The Brechin Group Inc.
The Cross Chute, 1938, by David B. Milne. Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, gift from the Douglas M. Duncan Collection, 1970 (16430). Photo credit: National Gallery of Canada.
U.S.S.R. Shock Brigade of the World Proletariat, 1931, by Gustav Klutsis. Collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (VMM Z-8628). Courtesy of Iveta Derkusova.
Art Canada Institute
Massey College, University of Toronto
4 Devonshire Place
Toronto, ON M5S 2E1
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Boyanoski, Christine, author
Paraskeva Clark : life & work / Christine Boyanoski.
Includes bibliographical references.
Contents: Biography — Key works — Significance & critical issues — Style &
technique — Sources & resources — Where to see.
Electronic monograph in HTML, PDF and mobile formats.
ISBN 978-1-4871-0113-8 (HTML).–ISBN 978-1-4871-0114-5 (PDF).–
ISBN 978-1-4871-0115-2 (MOBILE)
1. Clark, Paraskeva, 1898-1986. 2. Clark, Paraskeva, 1898-1986–
Criticism and interpretation. 3. Painters–Canada–Biography.
I. Clark, Paraskeva, 1898-1986. Paintings. Selections. II. Art Canada
Institute, issuing body III. Title.
![Art Canada Institute, Paraskeva Clark, Untitled [Mount Pleasant and Roxborough at Night], 1962–63](/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/art-books_15_paraskeva-clark-untitled-mount-pleasant-and-roxborough-at-night-contextual.jpg)
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