Emery Clarke Biography
Emery Clarke (full name: John Emery Clarke) was an American illustrator born on July 18, 1911, in Parsons, Kansas, and he died in 1990.

He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute starting in 1932 and moved to New York in 1936 to pursue magazine illustration. Early in his career, Clarke freelanced for pulp magazines, painting covers for titles like Action Stories, Star Western, and notably several for the iconic Doc Savage series in the late 1930s

.In 1939, an unsolicited submission to The Saturday Evening Post was accepted, marking his breakthrough into major "slick" magazines. He went on to create seven covers for the Post (including the April 13, 1940, issue featuring a man singing "Happy Birthday" over the telephone), as well as work for Look, This Week, and Liberty.

During World War II, he served in the Army, producing training films. After the war, he collaborated for about ten years on the comic strip Invisible Scarlet O'Neil. In 1958, he became an instructor at the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut, and later retired to Arrington, Virginia.

Clarke was known for his versatile, engaging depictions of mid-20th-century American life, blending humor and warmth in his illustrations. He was remembered by colleagues as a multi-talented individual—skilled not only as an artist but also as a cook, carpenter, dancer, guitarist, camper, kayaker, and avid handball player.