Family's generations pool talent at downtown art gallery.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Three years after it opened its doors, the Karin Clarke Gallery in downtown Eugene is more of a family business than ever.

The gallery, which was conceived during a mother-daughter painting vacation in Italy, features Northwest regional art and the work of Eugene painters Mark Clarke and Margaret Coe. It's run by their daughter, Karin Clarke, and her husband, Robert Alexander, with Mark Clarke and Coe helping out behind the scenes.

The gallery's success - it opened at a location where another art gallery had previously failed - grows from the separate talents that each family member brings to the business.

"This kind of gallery could never ever happen with just one person or one couple," Coe says. "It relies so much on the fact that there is always something new coming up."

The older generation, Mark Clarke and Coe, have their painting to offer, of course; but they also bring a lifetime of contacts in the world of Northwest art.

Both have painted in Eugene for years, and both are well known in the art world and at the University of Oregon, where Mark Clarke worked for years at the art museum.

All that means the gallery has enjoyed access to work by significant artists of a generation past, from painters Carl Hall and David McCosh to sculptor Jan Zach.

It's been those shows, by dead artists with growing national reputations, that have often sold best at the gallery.

"Those are people who were really influential on my parents and many other artists in Oregon," Karin Clarke says. "It has felt good in a personal way to have their work. It's a real pleasure. And in a professional way I can't believe my good luck at having these museum-level shows."

Karin Clarke's biggest reservation about opening the gallery was that she didn't want the business to hurt her parents' reputations if it failed - or interfere with their art-making if it didn't.

"I was concerned initially about what roles people were going to have in the family," she says. "I was really sensitive to not wanting to burden my parents too much with the gallery business. I have not wanted to interrupt the flow of their painting. But it turns out they have both been able to do a lot of painting. My mom has been to France three times in the last year on painting trips. And she knows she can have a successful show at the gallery when she gets back."

The Clarkes early fell into a natural division of labor. Karin Clarke is the front woman at the gallery. After years as a waitress at high-end restaurants in Eugene and in Portland, she's accustomed to dealing with people smoothly and easily.

Her father prefers to remain behind the scenes. Mark Clarke was once chief exhibit preparator at the University of Oregon Museum of Art, meaning he got to do a lot of hanging of paintings. He now spends time framing and hanging work at the family gallery and, once in a while, can be convinced to show up at opening receptions.

And Karin Clarke's husband, Robert Alexander, has been filling in for his wife more often on the gallery floor.

"Being a little newer to the art scene, I have gotten to learn all kinds of really neat things," says Alexander, who also has his own business teaching ballroom dance. "Like hanging shows and how the ins and outs of the art business work. On top of that, all the artists have been such great people to deal with. It has been a real joy for me."

Coe says the gallery has created artistic opportunities she hadn't thought about. One is, she has constant close-up access to interesting art.

"I have been able to handle some paintings really intimately," she says. "Work I really like: a new Carl Hall painting I bought just yesterday."

In fact, Coe says, the biggest hazard of the family art business is the constant temptation to buy paintings for herself.

"I have got my room full of paintings by other people. Some of the pieces I just really meditate on. It's impacted my sensibility. I have always liked that quasi-abstract Northwest work from the '50s."

The gallery does occupy some of her time, says Coe, who often goes with her daughter to visit artists, look at art work and select shows.

"There are whole days that get committed to the gallery in different ways," she says. "I don't complain about it. Mark and I are pretty good at dividing up the work. When one of us knows we can take care of something the other one doesn't have to be very involved."

Coe has ambitious hopes for the future. She'd like to see the Karin Clarke Gallery reach a national market, which she's convinced exists for the style of mid- to late 20th century expressionist Northwest painting that forms the core of many of its shows.

"I think that the gallery can be a sort of beacon to a certain kind of Northwest art that interests people nationally and internationally," she says. "There are quite a few artists alive and working in that vein. If you get enough people who will follow the Web site and come to trust the gallery I think things can happen."

Meanwhile, the two-generation family business is on the verge of becoming a three-generation business: Karin Clarke is pregnant with her first child.

KARIN CLARKE GALLERY

What: Gallery selling fine art in downtown Eugene

Where: 760 Willamette St.

Founded: 2002

Owners: Karin Clarke is gallery director and sole owner of the incorporated business. The gallery employs her husband, Robert Alexander; her parents, Eugene painters Mark Clarke and Margaret Coe also work at the gallery, which has no other regular employees.