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John Frederick Mowbray-Clarke

Jamaica, 1869 - 1953

BiographyJohn Frederick Mowbray-Clarke was an American sculptor specializing in medals. Mowbray-Clarke was one of the organizers of the influential 1913 Armory Show in New York.

n 1906, Mary Horgan met John F. Mowbray-Clarke, a Jamaican-born English sculptor who had moved from London to New York City in 1896. After a brief courtship they were married 28 March 1907. Not long after the birth of their only child, John Bothwell Mowbray-Clarke in the fall of 1908, the couple bought a small farm on South Mountain Road in rural Rockland County, New York, and began a period of urban and rural life. With John and Mary's many contacts in the art world they soon found their country place (which they named The Brocken) had become the nucleus of an informal artistic community.

In late 1911, John Mowbray-Clarke helped found the Association of American Painters and Sculptors (AAPS) and was elected its vice president. The association had been created with the specific aim of exhibiting and promoting the work of younger American and European artists, and toward this end hired the armory of the 69th Regiment of the New York National Guard for one month.

Thus did the International Exhibition of Modern Art--the Armory Show--open on 17 February 1913. The controversial Armory Show, which would later travel to Chicago and Boston, was an important event in the history of American art, as it introduced U.S. audiences to avant-garde artists and experimental forms of Modern Art.

Not long after Bothwell's birth John had, without Mary, attended a dinner given by "some liberal group" in the city. That evening he told his wife he'd been seated between "two of the most interesting women in America." One was the biographer Katharine Anthony; the other was Madge Jenison... http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00446/hrc-00446.html accessed 10/20/2017

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Last Updated8/7/24

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