The Robert Mede Gallery highlights a rare and personal painting by the American illustrator McClelland Barclay.

A man kneeling in front of a beautiful woman, his face buried in her hand. Is he proposing , or asking for forgiveness? The woman is Virginia Moore, Barclay’s fiancée and model. The male figure could very well be Barclay. The artist died in 1943, at the height of his career in the Solomon Sea while in action with the US navy.

McClelland Barclay was born in 1891 in St. Louis, Missouri. Barclay moved to New York City in 1912 to study at the Art Students League under Tom Fogarty and George Bridgeman. Later he would continue his art studies at the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts, the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and the Art Institute of Chicago. Barclay was a multi-talented artist, working both as a sculptor and jewelry designer, but it was as an illustrator that Barclay is best remembered as the most important figure in early twentieth-century illustration.

His talents as an illustrator saw him create posters for the Red Cross, military and service organizations and advertising illustrations for major corporations. In the 1920s and ’30s, Barclay produced cover illustrations for most American magazines, including Colliers, Pictorial Review, Country Life, Ladies Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, Country Gentleman and Cosmopolitan. Companies such as A&P, Elgin Watches and Lever Bros. hired Barclay for illustrations. The most memorable advertising campaign Barclay will be remembered for was his illustrations for General Motors Fisher Body Works and the glamorous and beautiful women Barclay portrayed in his artwork ( his second wife modelled for most of the illustrations in the 1930s). During this time period, Barclay also created movie posters for Paramount Pictures and Twentieth-Century Fox., and was one of two artists who first painted the film star, Betty Grable.

The painting, oil on canvas measures 30 x 40 inches and is signed. This personal expression of love and the meaning behind it will remain a haunting question of a man who loved women and followed his heart until his passing in World War 2.