Clare (Clarence) Mente

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BORN: 1929, Milwaukee

DIED: February 17, 2005, Milwaukee

Clarence, or Clare, was nicknamed "Ace" as a child growing up on the streets of Milwaukee.

Reportedly the first publicity about Clare came about when he "disappeared" while while serving on a Great Lakes freighter. In 1951 he "vanished" for 18 hours, missing two watches and sparking an intense "man overboard" search! In reality, Clare had become so engrossed in his paintings that he completely lost track of time.

A newspaper article from that time shows him posing with three of his paintings. One like Modigliani, another like Utrillo, and another resembles Marsden Hartley. From these typically '50s bohemian styles he departed to find his own vision, eventually arriving at a bright, comic-like style with often heavy narrative baggage. 

As a self-taught atyist, his adventurous life produced two distinct bodies of work; The Memory Paintings, nostalgic if sometimes troubled looks back at his childhood in the 1930s and 40s, and The Radical Work, reflecting his later political concerns and adventures as a Merchant Marine for 45 years. Most of his paintings, aside from an earlier period (early 1950s, largely undocumented) of more traditional work done in Milwaukee, are acrylic on nautical chart! Once he retired from the sea, he produced almost no work; perhaps the motion of a ship was a part of his method by then, or the ocean his muse.

His work deals with other memories, first-hand accounts of the world's suffering, seen during 40 years of merchant marine duty throughout the world, often in contracted quasi-military duty. Clare spent six years at the height of the Vietnam War running supplies up and down the Saigon River. He spent time assigned to Diego Garcia, a "secret" naval base in the Indian Ocean. Relief missions to Somalia. The list goes on. Almost every port in the world. He logged over a million miles at sea and visited almost every port in the world.  And starving children everywhere he went...

A frequent motif in these works is the stars and stripes. Clare takes a dim view of the impositions of the first world on the third. Having done his patriotic duty many times over, his visual critique has a special poignancy. He's seen it all, and most of it isn't pretty. Several of the works feature an American flag motif, with the red stripes representing blood, and the stars alternate with B52 bombers.

Photo credit: Philo T. Ogden, 1999 - Clare Mente - Self-taught Painter of the World.