The centennial of American modern realist Clark Hulings launches with a birthday gala in Santa Fe:
Celebrating the centennial of modern realist painter Clark Hulings (1922-2011), The Clark Hulings Foundation will throw a 100th birthday party in Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 20, 2022, to launch a year-long commemoration of Hulings’ life and work. Fittingly, the Hulings Centennial will be launched in the artist’s home city from 1972, and staged in Santa Fe’s historic hotel, La Fonda on the Plaza, also commemorating its first century.
More from the organizers:
Clark Hulings’ paintings, whether visions from Europe, North Africa, or the Americas, have immersed us in exquisitely realistic portrayals of life since he first put brush to canvas in the 1950’s. With the skill of an 18th Century master, and 20th Century eloquence, Hulings captures the people’s labors, domestic lives, and street cultures from the mid-20th to early 21st centuries. He reveals them as if to remind us how utterly we depend on the natural rhythms of life’s endeavors and are served by the nobility of our shared human spirit.
In a nod to Clark Hulings’ senses of humor and perspective, birthday celebrants will be welcomed to La Fonda by a gregarious live donkey, Rosita, and offered one of Hulings’ favored Martinis to begin a cocktail hour of mingling with family members, writers, collectors, curators, gallerists, and working artists gathered on the hotel’s La Terraza & Garden Terrace. During cocktail hour, guests can bid on silent auction items, demo the Hulings VR exhibition, and observe five Santa Fe artists, Lee Rommel, McCreary Jordan, Katherine Stedham, Brad Smith, and Ric Dentinger, as they complete paintings to be sold off their easels.
During dinner, those whose lives and work were influenced by Clark Hulings will reminisce via a collection of short videos assembled by maverick film editor Barbara Ottinger and award winning Photographer Carol Halebian. The Director of the Booth Western Art Museum, Seth Hopkins, will virtually cut the ribbon to launch his museum’s Clark Hulings Virtual Reality Exhibition and the evening will draw to a close with expressions of appreciation, a birthday cake, and a champagne toast to the launch of the coming months’ Centennial events.
Among the Hulings Centennial programming in development for 2023 are further virtual exhibitions of his work in collaboration with museums including The New Mexico Museum of Art; further virtual and in-person exhibitions; and the re-launch of in-person educational programming by The Clark Hulings Foundation that leverages CHF’s digital and hybrid model.
The Centennial Birthday Party can be attended in person or virtually, to be streamed on date and time to be announced, with an MC hosting live on-line.
All celebrants will receive a collectible NFT commemorative featuring Clark Hulings’ original donkey and cart and the Hulings Centennial Logo—one more example of Clark Hulings’ forward-facing legacy.
The evening benefits The Clark Hulings Foundation, established in 2013 to promote Hulings’ legacy by equipping artists to be self-sustaining entrepreneurs so that they can thrive from their artistry, as he did. The Foundation delivers an ongoing suite of integrated learning services via live events, digital channels, and portable media formats and builds professional networks of opportunity.
The Clark Hulings Foundation, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is led by Hulings’ daughter, Elizabeth, the Executive Director. The board of directors and advisors is drawn from business, fine arts, and education in 20 American cities.
Additional details about and reservations for the November 20th Santa Fe Gala are available at clarkhulingsfoundation.org/hulings100.
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