Ed Clark The Big Sweep

A visual biography of the influential American abstractionist and pioneer of the shaped canvas, with interviews, ephemera and historical documents

From his pioneering use of painting tools such as push brooms to his innovation of the shaped canvas, the impact of artist Ed Clark’s (1926–2019) work on the course of abstract painting in America was profound. On both sides of the Atlantic―in New York and in Paris―Clark witnessed and participated in myriad pivotal developments in mid to late 20th-century art history, counting artists such as Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Joan Mitchell and David Hammons among his friends and acquaintances.
This publication recounts the story of Clark’s art, life and career through reprints of important historical texts and interviews with the artist, as well as photographs, letters and ephemera from his archive.