Painter and printmaker Clark Hobart (1868-1948) was born in 1868, though it remains unclear where: reference books indicate that he was born in Rockford, Illinois while his death record states that he was born in Seattle, Washington. Nevertheless, his childhood and the majority of his life was spent in California. He was a pupil of John A. Stanton and Giuseppe Cadenasso at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco - then known as the School of Design - and also received private instruction from William Keith. Hobart went to New York to continue his schooling at the Art Students League under Robert Frederick Blum and George Brant Bridgman, winning a student art cometition for a four-panel display at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Following his time at the ASL he traveled to Europe, where he spent three years in studying in Paris. 

Upon his return to the U.S. at the beginning of the century, he worked in New York City as an art editor for Burr-McIntosh magazine. He moved West in 1911, settling for a few years in the coastal town of Monterey. He became primarily known for his color monotypes, exhibiting a selection at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, receiving a silver medal and much critical acclaim. In 1916 he moved north to San Francisco and that same year the Oakland Art Museum, during its inaugural exhibition, devoted a room to Hobart's monotypes. He was a vital part of the Bay Area arts community, holding memberships in and exhibiting with the San Francisco Art Association, the Society of California Etchers, and the Bohemian Club.

Hobart gained national acclaim and comparisons to such leading Fauvists as Paul Cezanne, and he won numerous awards for his work. He was included in shows at the Del Monte Art Gallery in Monterey; the Helgeson Gallery in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the New York Architectural League, among others. He is represented in the collection of the Oakland Museum, the de Young Memorial Museum, the Mills College Art Gallery, the San Francisco Museum of Art and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art.

Clark Hobart married the head of the art department at San Francisco's Mission High School, Mary Young, and in 1923 they opened an interior design company. He continued to work and paint, and lived throughout the greater Bay Area until his death in Napa, California on February 23, 1948.

Selected exhibitions:
1898: Art Students League, New York
1913: Hotel Del Monte, Monterey, CA
1914: San Francisco Fine Arts Museum (feat. "The Blue Bay, Monterey" oil)
1915: Helgeson Gallery, San Francisco; Panama-Pacific International Exposition (silver medal, monotypes); Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art
1916: Kennedy Gallery, New York; National Academy of Design, NY
1923: Bohemian Club, San Francisco (retrospective)

Selected prizes: 
1915: Panama-Pacific International exhibition
1918, 1920, 1922: San Francisco Art Associaion