Alson Skinner Clark experienced three succinct phases in his career: as a well-known cosmopolitan painter associated with prominent dealers such as William Macbeth in New York and William O’Brien in Chicago, as an artist who witnessed and recorded the building of the Panama Canal in 1915, and as a muralist recovering from World War I in the warm climate of Southern California. “Nevertheless, throughout his prolific and extensive career, Clark always maintained his devotion to Impressionism – to painting en plein air – never abandoning his commitment to his work or his vision” (1).   Clark has been classified in the history of American art as a California impressionist, although he has been described as “an inveterate wayfarer” who traveled throughout Europe and the United States and did not relocate to Pasadena, California until 1920. He trained at The Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League of New York, The Chase School of Art, and the atelier of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834- 1903) in Paris.    1. Deborah Epstein Solon, An American Impressionist: The Art and Life of Alson Skinner Clark ( Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills, 2005), 15.