AMERICAN

William Henry Clapp - "Road over the Slope"

Painting, Oil on Canvas, 15" x 18".

William Henry Clapp was a painter and etcher of modernist styles ranging from Impressionism to Fauvism to Pointillism. He studied at the Montreal Art Association School with William Brymmer, the foremost teacher of the city, who, in turn, encouraged his students to study in Paris. Clapps's good friend was Clarence Gagnon, who later became a well-known expatriate painter, and they took numerous plein-air painting trips together. This experience was the first time Clapp had worked with humble, rural subjects instead of romanticized and grandiose academic subjects.
  In 1904, he went to Paris with Gagnon and several other Montreal artists and fell so much under the influence of Claude Monet that some artists accused him of copying the Impressionist too closely. He was also exposed to the cutting edge of modernist movements represented by Picasso, Cezanne, and Gaughin who, among others were just beginning to exhibit.
  Clapp was a member of the California Art Club, the Oakland Art League, and the San Francisco Art Association. His works are held in numerous institutions including the Canadian National Gallery and the Oakland Museum.

Subject: Landscape       Back to Previous Page