Clement, Russell T. 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born July 15, 1952, in Sacramento, CA; son of Ted (an economist) and Jean (a schoolteacher) Clement; married Rebecca Schiro (marketing manager); children: Esther, Jonathan, Samuel, Benjamin. Education: Brigham Young University, B.A., 1976, M.L.S., 1977, M.A., 1983; University of Hawai'i at Manoa, graduate study, 1979-81.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University Library, Northwestern University, 1970 Campus Dr., Evanston, IL 60208; fax: 847-467-7899. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, bibliographic researcher, 1975-77, Brigham Young University—Hawaii, Laie, special collections/instruction librarian, 1977-81, head of bibliographic/acquisitions department, 1981-86, fine arts librarian, 1986-95; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, humanities coordinator and tenured professor, 1995-2000; Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, head of art collection, 2000—. Also taught humanities and English, and library science courses, 1983—.

MEMBER:

Art Libraries Society of North America, American Library Association, Association of Architectural Librarians.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Outstanding academic book citation, Choice, and best art history reference book citation, Lingua Franca, both 1994, for Les Fauves: A Sourcebook; grant from National Endowment for the Humanities, 1992.

WRITINGS:

(Coeditor) Who's Who in Oceania, 1980-81, Institute for Polynesian Studies (Laie, HI), 1981.

Mormons in the Pacific: A Bibliography, Institute for Polynesian Studies (Laie, HI), 1981.

Mutiny on the Bounty: An Exhibition Commemorating the Two-Hundredth Anniversary of the Mutiny, Friends of BYU Library (Provo, UT), 1989.

Paul Gauguin: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1991.

The Age of Exploration, Friends of BYU Library (Provo, UT), 1992.

Henri Matisse: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1993.

Georges Braque: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1994.

Les Fauves: A Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1994.

Four French Symbolists: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Maurice Denis, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996.

(Coauthor) Neo-Impressionist Painters: A Sourcebook on Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, Theo Van Rysselberghe, Henri Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce, and Albert Dubois-Pillet, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1999.

(Coauthor) The Women Impressionists: A Sourcebook, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2000.

(With Annick Houzé and Christiane Erbolato-Ramsey) A Sourcebook of Gauguin's Symbolist Followers: Les Nabis, Pont-Aven, Rose + Croix, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2004.

Walter A. Netsch, FAIA: A Critical Appreciation Sourcebook, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), 2008.

(Coauthor) Deering Library: An Illustrated History, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), 2008.

(Coeditor) Great Smoky Mountains Regional Bibliography to 1934, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 2009.

Contributor to books, including Historical Dictionary of Oceania, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1981; Dictionary of Artists' Models, Fitzroy Dearborn (London, England), 2001; and Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 2006. Editor of art and architecture series, Greenwood Press and Praeger (both Westport, CT), 1991-2003. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Journal of Academic Librarianship, Electronic Library, Wilson Library Bulletin, Library Journal, Choice, Serials Review, Dialogue: Journal of Mormon Thought, Hawaiian Journal of History, Journal of American Folklore, and Art Libraries Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

"Laboring under the lash of promotion, tenure, and now post-tenure review," Russell T. Clement once told CA, "I produce dry academic art bibliographies and research guides to fin-de-siècle avant-garde French colorist painters." But critics have found Clement's works to be anything but dry. Clement is an authority on French impressionistic art—and "a one-man research dynamo on early twentieth-century colorists," according to an American Reference Books Annual reviewer.

Clement is regarded for his expertise on the short-lived French art movement known as the Fauves, which began in 1905 as a scandalous display of striking hues and clashing harmonies that led one critic to label the paintings as "fauves," or wild animals. Just a few years later, Cubism would eclipse Fauvism as the movement of choice. But in its brief lifetime, Fauvism produced "an impact [that] is still felt," as RQ reviewer Shannon Paul noted. After reading Clement's reference work Les Fauves: A Sourcebook, Paul observed: "I cannot imagine a fine arts library, maybe even a general reference library, functioning without a copy."

Les Fauves includes a chronology, bibliography, and biographical sketch on eleven French artists including Raoul Dufy and Louis Valtat (famous Fauvist Henri Matisse is covered in a separate volume). A Choice contributor cited the volume's "user-friendly" nature in calling Les Fauves "an invaluable asset to scholars researching the Fauve movement." To Stephanie C. Sigala in American Reference Book Annual, "the Clement sourcebook brings together a mass of information on these radical artists, and it may stimulate new thought, or at least higher-quality term papers."

With Four French Symbolists: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Maurice Denis, Clement provides a wide-ranging sourcebook, giving his readers "research on the late nineteenth-century beginnings of modern art," in the view of an American Reference Books Annual contributor. Clement also has compiled bio-bibliographies on individual painters of the era, including Paul Gauguin, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. Of the latter book, an American Reference Book Annual contributor noted that the author "provides the Matisse researcher with an invaluable tool … a concise yet information-rich biographical sketch of the artist." The Women Impressionists: A Sourcebook, earned similar reviews that were published in American Reference Book Annual. Elizabeth A. Ginno commented that the text "offers a rich bibliographic tool for scholars and the four women detailed," adding that "the greatest strength of this resource lies in its chapters on Gonzales and Bracquemond."

The reviews of Clement's books are often short pieces created especially for library and reference publications. As a reviewer himself for such periodicals, Clement calls creating these short assessments "the most challenging, vexing, and intense writing I do. Capturing a book's thesis," he told CA, as well as "content, level of treatment, approach, accuracy, authoritativeness, evaluating its significance, and suggesting which libraries should purchase it—all within a few sentences—is no easy feat. Writing short and tight helps in all other writing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

American Reference Book Annual, Libraries Unlimited (Westport, CT), 1995, Stephanie C. Sigala, review of Les Fauves: A Sourcebook; 1997, review of Four French Symbolists: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Maurice Denis; 2001, Elizabeth A. Ginno, review of The Women Impressionists: A Sourcebook.

PERIODICALS

Choice, December, 1991, review of Paul Gauguin: A Bio-Bibliography; June, 1994, review of Henri Matisse: A Bio-Bibliography; October, 1994, review of Georges Braque: A Bio-Bibliography; March, 1997, review of Four French Symbolists.

Reference and Research Book News, August, 1997, review of Georges Braque, p. 35; September, 1994, review of Les Fauves, p. 34.

RQ, winter, 1981, Chad J. Flake, review of Mormons in the Pacific: A Bibliography, pp. 201-202; Shannon Paul, review of Les Fauves.