Extraordinary Women: Paraskeva Clark, 1898-1986
Artist, communist & unlikely Rosedale wife
Back Lane Studios returns for another in the Extraordinary Women series with a documentary and discussion about the redoubtable Toronto artist Paraskeva Clark. She was small but strong-featured, an outspoken communist whose identity was rooted in her Russian working-class origins; she was stylish and argumentative; she had experienced great loss. She painted, when the duties of motherhood would allow. How did she end up married to a Toronto accountant, living in Rosedale? It all goes back to a carved wooden statue of a woman in a Paris decorative arts gallery window, where Clark worked in the 1920s.
We will be screening Portrait of the Artist as an Old Lady, a 1982 NFB documentary, and are fortunate to have a wonderful panel for our Q&A: Film director Gail Singer; Clark's granddaughter and Bloor West artist Panya Clark Espinal; York University prof and art historian Anna Hudson; and art historian Mary Evans, who curated a 1982 show of Clark's work in Halifax.
Tickets are by donation ($10 suggested) in advance on
Eventbrite or at the door. Read more about the event
here.