Chevis Delwin Clark became enamored with his surroundings while growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, “where in my childhood the attractions of the waterfronts, marshlands, and streets of the old city would draw me on solitary walls.” His fascination with his locale became the primary subject of his paintings.
Clark was born in Charleston and rarely left except for military service and art school. During World War II, Clark served as a second-class petty officer in the United States Navy, first with the North Atlantic convoy missions (1942–1943), and then in the Pacific Theater (1944–1945). He participated in twelve invasions in the Pacific including the Battle of Ormoc Bay in the Philippines and the raids on Borneo. He also served with occupation forces in Korea and China.
Following the war, in 1949 Clark enrolled at the High Museum of Art School, at the time affiliated with the Atlanta College of Art. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1950 and then spent a year at Jacksonville Junior College, a private Baptist college in east Texas. “I could hardly wait to return to Charleston and begin painting the sunlight on her weathered brick walls.” There, he accepted a position he “didn’t enjoy” as an electrician at the Naval Shipyard. Ultimately, and more to his liking, he became the staff illustrator for the Navy supply center in Charleston. He worked in that role from 1958 until 1973. In 1969 his painting Replenishment at Sea was chosen for the Navy combat art collection in Washington, DC.
Around 1970 Clark began teaching at the Hastie School of Art at the Gibbes Art Gallery where Ray Goodbred also taught. Clark also conducted private lessons. He became involved with the South Carolina Guild of Artists alongside Carl Blair, Emery Bopp, and Willard Hirsch. For a while he served as the organization’s treasurer.
His love of Charleston is evident in the abundance of landscapes, sometimes inflected with a bit of Cubist perspective, he created during his lifetime. He often completed his watercolors outdoors in one sitting, and when he worked in acrylic or oil he did so from sketches or his memory. Despite an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, he remained steadfast in his practice until his death.