Clarence Holbroock Carter Biography

1904 - 2000

American master artist, Clarence Holbrook Carter was a prolific painter and printmaker, whose art style ranged from MAGIC REALISM to APSTRACTION to POP, during his various career stages.

Trained at The Cleveland Institute of Arts, he travelled extensively through Europe, studied at Hans Hoffman Summer School in Capri and had exhibited in Carnegie International, and other international watercolor exhibitions, in the early stages of his career.

Through the next four decades, Carter's works was labeled, surrealism, Magic Realism, geometric abstraction, pop and op, but no category could capture his style completely. It was in the mid-1960's, in his series called "Mandalas," that his fascination with the egg-shaped ovoid began. Author James A. Michener has commented that the egg in Carter's works is ". . . a mysterious symbol evoking the past, the origins, the overtones of Christianity."

In addition, Carter has painted murals for a number of buildings, across. He also taught, lectured and judged at such notable schools as The Minneapolis School of Art, Ohio. University, Lafayette College, Iowa State and his own alma mater.

In his own words: "for me no great art has ever existed without some mystery and some awe. It is that intangible which can never be defined but only felt in an elusive way that stirs the spirit."

SELECTED MUSEUMS AND COLLECTIONS - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC - Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC - Michener Art Museum, Pennsylvania - Harvard University Art Gallery