Visual Arts
Major studied drawing and painting under the direction of painter Gus Nall (1919-1995) from 1952 to 1954. He also attended sketch and lecture classes during the same period in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago. Among his teachers there was Addis Osborne (1914-2011).
Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Pierre Menard Gallery, Harvard Square, Cambridge, University Art Gallery Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Sarah Lawrence College, Kresge Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, Hamilton Club Gallery, Paterson, New Jersey, Phoenix Gallery, Sacramento CA, Exploding Head Gallery, Sacramento CA, Blue Hills Gallery, Winters, CA, Main Street Gallery, Winters CA, and many other venues.
His paintings are in many private collections as well as in several public one: Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Passaic County Community College Permanent Collection of Contemporary Art and the Schacknow Museum of Fine Art, Plantation, Florida.
His paintings have also appeared in many group shows at such galleries as John Natsoulas Gallery (Davis, CA), University of Rochester Art Gallery (Rochester, New York), Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles, Anita Shapolsky Gallery (New York, New York), 40 Acres Gallery (Sacramento, CA), Main Street Gallery (Winters, CA).
Many of his paintings have appeared on covers of his own books, among them Myself Painting and Waiting for Sweet Betty, two poetry collections. His novel Emergency Exit contains reproductions of his paintings and his essay collection, Necessary Distance, is illustrated with his drawings. A book on his art and literature, Clarence Major and His Art: Portraits of an African-American Postmodernist by Bernard Bell, appeared in 1998. Conversations with Clarence Major by Nancy Bunge was published in 2002. While focused largely on literature, both books contain Major's views on painting.
Major curated the exhibition of paintings "Spirit Made Visible", containing the works of Robert Colescott, John Abduljaami, Mike Henderson, Oliver Jackson, Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Joe Overstreet, Raymond Saunders, Clarence Major and others, at the John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, California, May 9-May 31, 1992.
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