Henry Ray Clark

1936-2006

Henry Ray Clark, a folk artist born in Bartlett, Texas in 1936, moved to Houston when he was just a boy. Handsome, with deep blue eyes, he came to be known on the streets of Houston as "Pretty Boy" and then "The Magnificent Pretty Boy", either by his own naming or by one of the many women who knew him. Clark's life of drug dealing, pimping, and other hustles always left him feeling like the next score would set him up for life. After a series of drug dealing convictions he was found guilty of an assault, his third strike in the Texas Three Strikes Law, which sentenced him to 25 years in Huntsville State Prison.  Clark began to draw after being introduced to the prison arts program, and he found that drawing provided him with a release from the confinement of prison. He drew with green, black, and red ball point pens on any scrap of paper he could find — from envelopes to prison menus. His unusual sanguine attitude toward life behind bars sprang partly from a Christian fatalism and partly from the clear focus art had provided for his energies. “They can lock up my body,” he said, “but they can’t lock up my mind.  As long as my mind can create something beautiful to look at, I am a free man and I will live forever in my art.”  Clark created images of far off galactic worlds inhabited by powerful beings, describing his gladiators and cosmic visions with razor-sharp outlines, covering every millimeter of the surface with the color inks. Clark was eventually released from prison but in 2006, was shot and killed by 2 home invaders. ³