Clara Elsene Peck | |
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| Born | April 18, 1883 Allegan, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | February 1968 (aged 84) Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Notable work | Illustrations/decorations for Shakespeare's Sweetheart (1905), A Lady of King Arthur's Court (1907), both by Sara Hawks Sterling; and In the Border Country, (1909) by Josephine Daskam Bacon |
| Movement | American Impressionism |
| Awards | New York Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, Prize, 1920, 1921 |
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Clara Elsene Peck (April 18, 1883 – February 1968) was an American illustrator and painter known for her illustrations of women and children in the early 20th century. Peck received her arts education from the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and was employed as a magazine illustrator from 1906 to 1940. Peck's body of work encompasses a wide range, from popular women's magazines and children's books, works of fiction, commercial art for products like Ivory soap, and comic books and watercolor painting later in her career. Peck worked during the "Golden Age of American Illustration" (1880s–1930s) contemporaneous with noted female illustrators Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley.
Peck's work appeared in exhibitions from the Art Institute of Chicago to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and she received awards from the New York Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in the 1920s. Peck resided in an art colony in Leonia, New Jersey, with her collaborator and husband, artist John Scott Williams. In the 1940s, Peck contributed to Catholic comic books distributed to parochial schools. She focused on watercolor painting in the 1950s and her work was exhibited in Europe and the United States. Her most notable illustrations and artwork were published in three books early in her career: Shakespeare's Sweetheart (1905), A Lady of King Arthur's Court (1907), and In the Border Country (1909).