Clark Hulings

Clark Hulings was born on November 20, 1922, in Florida, and was raised in New Jersey. As a teenager he began studying drawing and anatomy with Sigismund Ivanowsky and the noted draftsman George Bridgman. He then earned a degree in physics from Haverford College, graduating in 1944, before returning to the Art Students League of New York to continue his training under Frank Reilly.

Hulings was admitted to the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York, which represented him for about eight years and gave him one-man shows in 1965 and 1967. He lived at various points in New York, Louisiana, and Europe before settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico, around the early 1970s.

In 1973 his painting Grand Canyon, Kaibab Trail won the first Prix de West award from the National Academy of Western Art, a prize associated with the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and that painting remains in the museum's permanent collection. He went on to receive several further medals from the National Academy of Western Art, the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Trustees' Gold Medal, and, in 2004, the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe began representing him in 1989 and continued to show his work regularly through the rest of his career. Clark Hulings died on February 2, 2011, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 88.

Hulings built his reputation through juried competitions and institutional prizes rather than through critical writing in major art publications. His 1973 win of the first Prix de West award established him within the National Academy of Western Art's circle of realist and Western-market painters, a standing reinforced by later NAWA silver and gold medals and by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame's Trustees' Gold Medal for his contribution to American art. Earlier in his career he had already been recognized in national competitions, including a Hudson Valley Art Association award for Restaurante Vicente and an Allied Artists of America gold medal for Ontinyent. The recurring institutional theme is technical draftsmanship and observational precision, particularly in his market and street scenes, rather than a single defining critical debate about his work.

Hulings' documented auction high is Grand Canyon, a 31 by 47 inch oil on canvas, reported at USD 345,000 as a record for the artist. The reporting source confirms the price and dimensions but does not name the auction house or give an exact sale date, so those details are left unconfirmed here. Other documented six-figure results at Coeur d'Alene Art Auction include Grand Canyon (1970) at USD 291,200 and Las Ramblas (2004) at USD 166,600. Taken together, these sales show a market with real depth at the top end but a comparatively small number of public, high-value transactions, so any single result should be read in the context of the specific work rather than as a smooth trend line. Since his death, his estate has continued to place work through Nedra Matteucci Galleries and the Clark Hulings Estate's own sales channels.

There is no published catalogue raisonne for Clark Hulings, so provenance and verification through the Clark Hulings Estate carry extra weight when buying or selling a work. His galleries of record today are Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe and the estate's own sales channels, while earlier relationships with Grand Central Art Galleries, J.N. Bartfield Galleries, Morris & Whiteside Galleries, and The Forbes Galleries are historical rather than current. His auction record is anchored by a small number of six-figure results, so collectors should weigh subject matter, size, and exhibition history for a given painting rather than assume a single benchmark price applies broadly across his body of work.