Pegg Clarke (c. 1890 – 1959) was an Australian professional fashion, portrait, architectural and society photographer whose work, published frequently in magazines, was referred to by historian Jack Cato as being of "the highest standard.

With her professional and life partner Dorothy Izard, Hollick met the painter Dora Wilson and her lifelong companion Pegg Clarke (the pair were soon to share a studio), and together the two close couples forged a strong personal friendship.

[11] A 1937 article in The Australian Home Beautiful makes clear that despite their lasting relationship their tastes differed, with Wilson favouring period-style decor for their studio and Clarke, the modernist furnishings.

[19][20] From 1923 Clarke started to advertise her services with mention of her inclusions in "The London Salon 1921" and "The Pittsburgh Salon 1922", and shifted with Wilson to an upstairs studio which they shared in Linden Hall, a block of luxury flats at 403 Glenferrie Road, Malvern, then from 1927-1940s,[21] relocated to a studio she designed at 476 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn,[12] opposite the private school Scotch College, the clientele and grounds of which she photographed.

[5] Newspapers' social columns covered the couple's activities regularly,[22][23][24][25] and the farewell parties when in April 1927 they readied to depart on a two-and-a-half year tour of Europe,[26][27][28][29] a trip which was partly funded by the anthropologist and art patron Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer who commissioned them to document monuments.

[30] The couple, usually Clarke, corresponded regularly to the Australian press, sending lively descriptions of their adventures touring by car to avoid the cost of rail travel and staying in barns in England,[31][32] and traveling cheaply by boat, train or horse-cart in often remote parts of France, Spain, Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, Belgium and Germany.

[33][34][35][36][37] A party to which Hollick, Izard and Jessie Traill invited artist friends was held in newly built Chartres House, Melbourne on their return in October 1929.

[38][39][40] In June 1936 Wilson and Clarke spent a week together in Sydney sketching and photographing and made a leisurely few days on the journey back to make more pictures.

[41] Clarke volunteered her photography for charitable causes; in 1935 a 'Popular Child Competition' in aid of Prince Henry's Hospital Building Fund;[42] and during WW2 for the French Red Cross, in which she photographed a series of tableaux vivant of famous paintings acted before the Governor Sir Winston Dugan and Lady Dugan, the Lord Mayor and Mrs. A. W. Coles, the president of the French Red Cross, Mme.

[43][44][45][46] She had earlier portrayed, probably for a similar event, L. Bernard Hall, then director the National Gallery of Victoria, dressed as an Italian Nobleman (photograph held in Castlemaine Art Museum).

[45] For an exhibition at Ruyton Girls' School, Kew, of photographs in aid of war service and Red Cross funds, Clarke donated her own work,[48] and with Wilson contributed To "The Argus" Fund the Food for Britain Appeal[49] Dora Wilson died 21 November 1946 after four months of illness, with notices and obituary acknowledging Clarke as "a fellow artist and close friend.

[4] Unlike her friends Clarke was not trained at the National Gallery School, though she drew as well as photographed, but was involved with the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors.

She did however come to know, and portray, prominent artists of the period,[52] including Jessie Traill, one of Australia's most important 20th century printmakers who in 1909, moved to a studio in Temple Court,[53][54] an arcade off Collins Street in Melbourne, occupied by Janet Cumbrae Stewart, Nora Gurdon and A. M. E. Bale, and where she may have first met Dora Wilson.

On gazing at her photographs, several of what one might aptly term "treescapes" having a soft melting grace reminiscent of a Corot without colouring, makes it absolutely indifferent to academic discussions of whether photography is an art or a craft.

In a July 1924 review of a group exhibition at Queen's Hall, critic J. S. MacDonald remarks that "Pegg Clarke's three photographs of landscape motifs are excellent.

Without any forcing of contrast, with no unduly black shadows, and without any apparent additional finish by washes with a brush, Miss Clarke attains an exhibition of pure photographs which does not in any way attempt the qualities one may look for in an oil or water colour painting.