The Hilbert Museum maps out the travels of painter Timothy J. Clark

Modernmaster painter Timothy J. Clark finds inspiration at home and abroad. A gas station on a rainy night. A proud Mariachi musician holding up his bass guitar. A plate of red snappers with lemon. The architecture of a church in Spain.

Clark’s work spans a variety of subjects. His current solo exhibition at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University in Orange includes urban landscapes, portraits, still lifes and interiors.

“The focus of this exhibition has been my travels but also the inspiration of my hometown of Santa Ana in Orange County,” said Clark.

“Timothy J. Clark: Going Places,” on display in the south wing galleries now through March 8, was curated by Marcus Burke and Mary Platt and features nearly 40 of the artist’s watercolors.

Born in Santa Ana in 1951, Clark grew up riding his bike though its Spanish-speaking neighborhoods, which helped him learn the language and is perhaps why bicycles are one of his favored subjects.

“In bikes we find something very elusive that reminds us of our youth and early freedom,” Clark said.

“Mexican Bicycle” (2018-20) depicts a bike leaning against a wall in Mexico City next to a broom. “Bicycles, Pier and Surfers, Newport Beach” (2010-24) features two bicycles with the Newport Pier and dory fishing boats in the dreamy distance, while “57th Street Bicycle” (2013) is distinctively more urban. Although the concepts are similar, each work is differentiated by its sense of place.

Clark made his first trip out of the country in 1970. He visited Guaymas, Mexico, at the age of 18 with his drawing mentor, Jess Rubio. There he found inspiration of a different sort, when the pair, who were riding rented motorcycles, were arrested and put in jail.

“We drew every guard in the jail, and they let us out,” said Clark. “I learned a lot about how to truly concentrate, because if I had messed up those drawings, I would still be in that jail.”

Timothy J. Clark’s “Taj Mahal” (2007) at the Hilbert Museum.

(Timothy J. Clark)

Today, Clark’s work is found in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress, and he has served as an art educator, author and even television host on the 13-part PBS series, “Focus on Watercolor” in 1989.

He has made a career of painting what he sees during his travels, advising young artists that while it is important to make a living, it is much more important to make a life. “Going Places” features depictions of places far and wide: griffins in Portugal, churches in Spain, a concert in Prague and the Taj Mahal in India.

On Thursday, art historian Tom Freudenheim lectured on Clark’s work at the Hilbert Museum for an audience of about 120. The former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution remarked on Clark’s keen ability to capture the true feeling of a place in his work, particularly in his painting “Taj Mahal” (2007).

“We are using our eyes all the time to see what things look like, but an artist can help us get an idea of what things actually feel like — and that is one of the reasons to look at art,” said Freudenheim. “I have been to the Taj Mahal, and I can’t believe how many photographs I took when I was there, but if I put one of them against this painting it wouldn’t match up. But that’s not really what matters. What matters is that it evokes, for me, what it was like when I was there.”

While Clark’s globetrotting has influenced his work, traces of his Orange County heritage are also found in the exhibition.

In one corner, still-life paintings of lemons and a plate of fresh fish flank a portrait of Pascal Olhats, the renowned French chef who has cooked for over three decades at his three Orange County restaurants: Tradition, Café Jardin Restaurant & Pascal’s Tea Garden Creperie and Pascal’s Café. “Table for Pascal” (2024) shows a table for two, set with wine glasses and linens ready for dining. Olhats, who now runs a catering business in O.C and is a good friend of Clark’s, also enjoys painting when he isn’t in the kitchen.

“He makes fun of me; he said I am an artist who likes to cook, and he is a chef who likes to paint,” Clark said.

The work of Timothy J. Clark, on view at the Hilbert Museum in Orange, spans a variety of subjects.

(Sarah Mosqueda)

Clark’s subject for “Pines Park Nocturne” (2023) is the Dana Point park after dark, a moody scene illuminated by a single street lamp. The intensity of the painting led Freudenheim to imagine the work to be much larger.

“I was surprised when I came here yesterday and saw that it was actually small; but it is so beautiful,” said Freudenheim. “It also has that surreal, mysterious kind of quality that I think is part of Tim’s work … there is something really spiritual about this painting that I find extraordinarily appealing.”

Clark is never without a small drawing book and at least two pens. He pulls the book from his back pocket and flips through some ideas he is working out. A woman pulling a shawl around her shoulder as she leaves a church, for instance. There are also some sketches of Clark’s own hand, curled in a fist.

“I’ll draw my hand when there is nothing to draw,” he said..

Timothy Clark’s watercolor on paper, “Pines Park Nocturne” (2023) on view at the Hilbert Museum in Orange.

(Timothy J. Clark)

“Timothy J. Clark: Going Places” is on view at the Hilbert Museum of California Art at 167 N. Atchison St. in Orange through March 8. For more information visit hilbertmuseum.org.