Beth Lea Clardy was born Jan.21, 1919 in Fort Worth to Eugene Scott and Hazel Ward Lea.  She attended Polytechnic High School and graduated as Spring Class Valedictorian in 1936.  She studied Education and Painting at TCU under Samuel Ziegler, and graduated in 1940.  During her college years, she spent summers working as one of the “Tall Texas Beauties” showgirls at Billy Rose’s Casa Manana Theatre for the four summer seasons that it existed.

After graduating from TCU, Clardy was awarded a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This was arranged in large part by her teacher and mentor, Samuel P. Ziegler, head of the Art Department at Texas Christian University and himself a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy. She attended summer school at the Academy before landing a teaching position at Oakhurst Elementary School in Fort Worth where she taught Art and Spanish. Later in her teaching career, she became the Art Specialist for the Fort Worth ISD.

Clardy met John L. Clardy when they worked at Casa Manana in 1937. After a 16 year courtship she married John in 1952. They had 3 children, Ann (Ekstrom), John Jr., and Gwen (Sylvester).
She influenced a generation of Fort Worth artists, playwrights and musicians.  She spent World War II years as a draftswoman at Convair, where several of the “Fort Worth Circle” of artists worked. There she literally worked between Kelly Fearing and Dickson Reeder.  She was a lifelong artist and worked almost to the time of her death, creating sophisticated contemporary works.

Clardy also assisted in creating many venues for Fort Worth artists to exhibit their works, including the annual “Art in the Metroplex” juried competition at TCU, which will celebrate it’s 25th Anniversary of competition this year.  She was instrumental for a number of awards to be presented, including the John L. Clardy Award and, since her death, the Beth Lee Clardy Memorial Award.
Very active in civic involvement, she was elected president of the Fort Worth Chapter of Young Democrats after college and for years kept up a lively correspondence with various political figures. She was involved with the League of Women Voters, The Texas Fine Arts Association, the Pan American Round Table, the Templeton Arts Center and various other civic-minded groups.
In 1997 Beth and her daughter Ann Clardy Ekstrom were juried into “The Unbroken Line, 1897 to 1997,” the Centennial Exhibition of the Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Because of her extensive artistic career spanning over 50 years, Beth was chosen by the Fellowship to speak at the Centennial event.

She had a one person exhibition in a New York gallery in 2001, and was given a retrospective solo show and the Distinguished Texas Artist Award by the Fort Worth Arts Council in 2003.

Over the years, Beth Lea Clardy, Margaret Mellott and Ann Ekstrom were involved in several regional exhibitions and competitions, including the “Exchange 9,” a curated exhibition of women artists that have shown in numerous venues across the state, including the Contemporary Arts Center of Fort Worth and the Wichita Falls Museum of Art.

Beth’s work has been exhibited in several major exhibitions, including “Celebrating Early Texas Art, Treasures from Dallas-Fort Worth private collections 1900-1960” in 2005 and “First Light: Local Art in the Fort Worth Public Library, 1901-1961” which exhibited in 2001.

ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2001    One person exhibition in a New York gallery
2003    Retrospective solo show and the Distinguished Texas Artist Award by the Fort Worth Arts Council

Information courtesy of Stephanie Reeves.