Representing the Estate of Merton Clivette
Merton Clivette - American Expressionist Rediscovered After 94 Years
Forgotten, Then Rediscovered
Despite exhibiting at prestigious venues including the Museum of Modern Art (1930) and the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris (1927), Clivette's work largely disappeared from public view after his death in 1931. For nearly a century, his paintings remained in private collections, unseen by art historians and the public.
Now, through the efforts of Four Riders LLC and the Clivette Estate, these remarkable works are being cataloged, restored, and shared with the world. The first major exhibition in 100 years took place in 2024 at Denenberg Fine Arts in Los Angeles, reintroducing Clivette's powerful paintings to contemporary audiences.
The Paintings
Clivette's work evolved from Ashcan School realism to bold expressionism over his two-decade painting career. His subjects ranged from the "Vamp" series—depicting 1920s burlesque performers in vivid, unflinching detail—to Native American portraits that drew on his frontier upbringing, to seascapes and still lifes that showed his evolving abstract sensibility.
His technique was distinctive: he rarely painted over a stroke twice, bringing the physical discipline of his acrobatic training to the canvas. Each brushstroke was a calculated performance, creating paintings that vibrate with energy and life.
Critics of his era recognized his innovation. The New York Times called him "the forerunner of Soutine," and the French government purchased one of his works for the Luxembourg Museum. Today, art historians are reassessing his place in American modernism, recognizing Clivette as a crucial bridge between early 20th-century realism and mid-century abstraction.
Gallery opens exhibit of art by Merton Clivette.
The exhibit is the first major show in 100 years of works by Merton Clivette. (photo courtesy of the Denenberg Gallery)
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Merton Clivette once dominated the 1920s and 1930s art world. He ruled the Orpheum Circuit as a magician, shadowgraphist, mindreader, and acrobat. He went by names such as Clivette the Great, The Man in Black, The Mysterious Stranger, and many others. Clivette led a remarkable life then, like the magician he was, he disappeared from the history books after his death in 1931.
This new biography seeks to rectify that.
Michael MacBride has collaborated with the Clivette Estate to reintroduce the Great Clivette to the world. Using Clivette’s journals, letters, and books he wrote during his lifetime, the new book—The Great Clivette—tells the full story of Clivette’s life for the first time using Clivette’s own voice. It is an adventure you won’t want to miss.
“The spiritual truth of the moving form is a changing mass of light, reflection, vibrating color – and life. Now when a form is moving – like a fish, for example – you cannot give the vibration of light on that form by adhering to a line to produce the fish.”