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Clark, James Harvey, ARSA

1885 – 1980

On leaving school Clark started a 6-year apprenticeship with McLagan and Cumming as a litho-artist. A scholarship award enabled him to study drawing and modelling ‘all day’ at the Academy School and he was one of the first to be transferred to the new Edinburgh College of Art, where he gained the Academy award—the Stewart Prize—for the best figure composition of the year. After leaving College he worked for two years, to gain practical experience and knowledge of the ‘styles’ in an ornamental sculptor’s studio. In the First World War he was mobilised with the Lothians and Borders Horse Yeomanry, later being transferred to the Royal Scots. By the end of the War he had become 2nd Lieutenant in the K.O.S.B. After de-mobilisation in 1918 he became Sculptor Assistant to several well-known monumental Sculptors including J. Beattie and J. Hayes and Mrs Alice Meredith Williams, while she was occupied upon the shrine of The Scottish National War Memorial. He also played a valuable part in the execution of many other War Memorials, including that at Westminster School and the great bronze group for Paisley. In 1929 he set up on his own and designed and carved a variety of mainly heraldic and monumental works for leading Edinburgh architects. He developed meanwhile his own individual sensitive line of figure-work and well-observed portrait busts. In 1936 he was elected an Associate member of the RSA. His obituary described him as "Gifted, gentle, unassuming, yet firm of character."



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