Russell Stuart Cedric Clark (27 August 1905 – 29 July 1966) was a New Zealand artist, illustrator, sculptor and university lecturer.

[2] His mother was recognised as a person with a sophisticated sense of colour and his father, a plumber and tinsmith, was an accomplished watercolourist.

[7] McCahon remembered Clark as a 'splendid teacher' and recalled in particular one exercise where he arranged a pile of chalk boxes to demonstrate the handling of tones and volumes.

Clark's three panel mural the Departure of the Tory from Plymouth, 1840[12] was positioned at the end of the foyer leading into the main exhibition hall.

By using 'a border of kauri and oak leaves and English Tudor roses' Clark's mural highlighted the links between England and its Dominion New Zealand.

In 1948 he was commissioned by the Education Department to illustrate Life at the Pa, a bulletin written by Ray Chapman Taylor[16] about the Urewera Iwi at Ruatahuna, a region he returned to many times.

Writer and economist Bill Sutch commented that while Clark depicted the 'fun and animated talk on the marae' he also registered 'the social strain put on the Māori race by the white man's alleged civilisation.

In 1942, the New Zealand Society of Arts wrote on his behalf to the Prime Minister Peter Fraser to recommend Clark as the official war artist.

[20] While in the Solomons Clark was a member of the hanging committee for an exhibition organised by the Special Services branch of the United States Army featuring work by war artists in the Pacific.

[25] Clark became a central figure in the Christchurch art scene starting by exhibiting nine paintings and a sculpture in his first Group Show in 1948.

[28] In 1951 he joined the advisory panel that went on to approve the previously rejected Frances Hodgkins painting Pleasure Garden, proposed for the Robert McDougall Art Gallery's collection.

[29] Archibald F. Nicoll, Richard Wallwork, Colin Lovell-Smith, Heathcote Helmore and Cecil Kelly were his co-panellists.

In the mid-1950s Clark and fellow teacher Eric Doudney pushed for the establishment of an Arts Council to support artists.

They produced a well-argued pamphlet proposing 'that some organisation should be brought into being to facilitate the employment of artists…and help in raising the general cultural level.

[18] Two years later Clark met an artist who would make a big Impression on his work: this was his brother-in-law Alan Ingham who had been born in Christchurch but studied sculpture at the Central School of Art in London.

After graduating Ingham had been selected by Henry Moore to be an assistant helping with bronze casting and making moulds.

[33] Perhaps in recognition of this connection Clark was asked to open the touring Henry Moore exhibition when it was shown at the Durham Street Gallery in Christchurch.

[32] Although he continued as a prolific illustrator, including projects such as Denis Glover's book Hot Water Sailor in 1962, from this time on Clark was increasingly engaged in large scale sculptural commissions until his death in 1966.

'[42] 1964 also saw Clark travel overseas to study architecture and the use of mosaic in public places but he became very ill.[43] On his return Clark was offered what was to be his final commission when he won a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council competition for sculpture for the Lower Hutt Civic Centre.