Visual Arts Brampton
May Clarke

Artist included in the 1967 book
A History of Peel County: To Mark Its Centennary*

Public demand turn May Clarke into a professional artist in 1964. Mrs. Clarke began painting only eight years ago [1959]. She developed a technique of painting with oils on black velvet and found that as fast as she completed a picture on velvet, a buyer would purchase it from her.

She was invited to exhibit her work in a one-man-show basis in the gallery of the Odeon-Carlton Cinema in Toronto on two occasions and for the past few years, has hung her work at the annual show held in the Hamilton Art Centre, in special exhibitions at Morgans, at the Carling outdoor show and at the Canadiana Gallery in the Colonnade where her paintings were displayed throughout the mezzanine.

Although still interested in capturing the Peel County landscape on canvas, Mrs. Clarke seems destined to receive only commissions, at present, for portraits on velvet, but hopes she can one day resume painting sections of the Caledon Mountain escarpment which she can see quite clearly from her studio window.

NOTE: Any words in square brackets [like these] are editors notes, to update old information.

* This article was used with permission from "A History of Peel County: To Mark Its Centennary", published in 1967, by what is now the Region of Peel. The segment in the book entitled "Renowned for Artists and Art" was written by Paddy Thomas. Thanks to the Peel Archives at the Peel Heritage Complex for the reprinting permission. All information was factually correct as of publication 1967, but may be inaccurate presently.