Oil painting captured Claire’s focus long before her teen years. Then, throughout high school she painted commissioned portraits of her classmates, for their parents, and earned money to pay the board bill on her horse.
Horses, dogs and other animals were the subject matter of numerous other commissioned paintings, as well. "I knew I wanted an art career when I visited galleries in Santa Fe and Taos as a child and I found my fulfillment at an early age creating art."
Claire was born in Washington, D.C.. in 1944 and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when her family moved west. She later studied informally with friends, Wilson Hurley and Arthur Sussman, while still in Albuquerque.
Then in 1989 she took a workshop from Roy Andersen. Having spent time horseback on friends’ ranches in New Mexico and Colorado, Claire gravitated naturally to western subject matter and landscapes.
She continues to exhibit her work in numerous shows throughout the U.S. For more than 25 years she made her home in the mountain town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, but now divides her time between Colorado and Texas. Claire has been featured in Southwest Art, Art of the West, Equine Images and the Appaloosa Journal.
