BLUES & ART * CARROLL CLOAR *
CARROLL CLOAR, AMERICAN, 1913-1993 WHERE THE SOUTHERN CROSS THE YELLOW DOG.
Carroll Cloar, American, 1913-1993
Where The Southern Cross The Yellow Dog, 1965
Casein tempera on Masonite
Memphis Brooks Museum Of Art;
Brooks Fine Arts Foundation Purchase 65.17
Copyright Estate Of Carroll Cloar
Carroll Cloar (January 18, 1913 – April 10, 1993) was a nationally known 20th century painter born in Earle, Arkansas, who focused his work on surreal views of Southern U.S. themes and on poetically portraying childhood memories of natural scenery, buildings, and people, often working from old photographs found in his family albums.
Guy Northrop, in his introduction on page 24 to Hostile Butterflies and Other Paintings by Carroll Cloar, (1977), quoted Cloar describing his images as "American faces, timeless dress and timeless customs ... the last of old America that isn't long for this earth." His Panther Bourne work depicted a surreal, Southern-mythic nature scene. Cloar employed pointillism in his painting "Waiting up for Lettie," creating over 800 works in his lifetime.
He moved to Memphis in 1930, attending Southwestern at Memphis College (later known as Rhodes College) as an English major. His recurrent themes of a "homecoming," implying that the essential beauty of a locale is best understood by one who has left a beloved place behind and then returned, are echoed in his own personal experience of traveling abroad for years and then returning to the South. He began his travels in Europe after college, before returning to Memphis to study at Memphis College of Art. He studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1936 to 1940.
A series of lithographs he created in that period of the landscape and people of his Earle, Arkansas, hometown led to his receipt of a McDowell Traveling Fellowship in 1940. Cloar traveled throughout the western United States and Mexico until World War II began. He then joined the Army Air Corps for the war effort.
Cloar visited Mexico on a 1946 Guggenheim Fellowship. He traveled around Central and South America until 1950. His first one-man show was held in 1953 in Memphis. He moved permanently to Memphis in 1955, after determining the direction of his art was rooted in his Southern U.S. experience.
Cloar then completed 14 works in 1955, including the representative work, "My Father Was Big as a Tree." A New York showing in 1956 helped establish his career nationally. Tennessee museums later held more than 10 exhibitions of his works, while he also displayed his work in New York showings.
Cloar died in Memphis in 1993.
Museums that have acquired Cloar's works
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
Art Museum of Sunrise, Charleston, WV
Art Museum of The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN
Brooklyn Museum of Fine Art, Brooklyn, NY
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
Carroll Reese Museum, Johnson City, TN
Cheekwood Museum, Nashville, TN
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
High Museum of Art ,Atlanta, GA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL
Neuberger Museum, Purchase, NY
Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Rockford Art Gallery, Rockford, IL
Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, MA
State University of New York, Albany, NY
Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood , Nashville, TN
Tennessee State Museum, Nashville h, TN
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
Whitney Museum, New York, NY
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
University of Memphis Libraries, Memphis, TN
External links[edit]
Biography portal
Encyclopedia of Arkansas writeup
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The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (Y&MV) was incorporated in 1882 and was part of the Illinois Central Railroad system (IC). Construction began in Jackson, Mississippi, and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. The line was later expanded through the Mississippi Delta and on to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1886, the IC purchased the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad. In 1892, the IC bought the Memphis to New Orleans line, forming the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway.
These lines were merged into the Y&MV.[citation needed] Between 1945 and 1946, the IC began to absorb its subsidiaries. The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad ceased to operate as an independent railroad. Later railroad restructuring ended passenger service on this line.
The railroad - or its predecessor, the Yazoo Delta Railway (Moorhead-Ruleville) - is featured in a number of blues songs by African-American artists as the Yellow Dog Railroad. According to W. C. Handy, locals assigned the words "Yellow Dog" to the letters Y.D. on the freight trains which they saw passing.
The Mississippi Blues Commission placed a historic marker at the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad depot site in Rosedale, Mississippi, designating it as a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker commemorates the original lyrics of legendary blues artist Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues," which traced the route of the Y&MV. It ran south from Friars Point to Rosedale, with stops including Vicksburg; and north to Memphis. The marker emphasizes a common theme of blues songs of riding on the railroad, which is seen as a metaphor for escape.
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The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (Y&MV) was incorporated in 1882 and was part of the Illinois Central Railroad system (IC). Construction began in Jackson, Mississippi, and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. The line was later expanded through the Mississippi Delta and on to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1886, the IC purchased the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad. In 1892, the IC bought the Memphis to New Orleans line, forming the Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway.
These lines were merged into the Y&MV.[citation needed] Between 1945 and 1946, the IC began to absorb its subsidiaries. The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad ceased to operate as an independent railroad. Later railroad restructuring ended passenger service on this line.
The railroad - or its predecessor, the Yazoo Delta Railway (Moorhead-Ruleville) - is featured in a number of blues songs by African-American artists as the Yellow Dog Railroad. According to W. C. Handy, locals assigned the words "Yellow Dog" to the letters Y.D. on the freight trains which they saw passing.
The Mississippi Blues Commission placed a historic marker at the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad depot site in Rosedale, Mississippi, designating it as a site on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker commemorates the original lyrics of legendary blues artist Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues," which traced the route of the Y&MV. It ran south from Friars Point to Rosedale, with stops including Vicksburg; and north to Memphis. The marker emphasizes a common theme of blues songs of riding on the railroad, which is seen as a metaphor for escape.
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