Partner Harrison Post

Queer Places:
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2520 Cimarron St, Los Angeles, CA 90018
Hollywood Forever, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038, United States

William Andrews Clark Jr. (March 29, 1877 - June 14, 1934) was born on March 29, 1877, in Deer Lodge, Montana, as the youngest surviving son of wealthy copper mining magnate and future United States Senator William Andrews Clark and his wife, Katherine Louise Stauffer. Raised in immense wealth, Clark received his early education in France and New York before earning a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Virginia in 1899. Returning to Montana after graduation, he practiced law as a partner at the firm Clark & Roote in Butte while simultaneously sitting on the boards of his family's vast industrial and mining enterprises. Over time, his interests shifted away from the corporate realm toward arts, music, and philanthropy, prompting his move to Los Angeles in the early 1910s.

Clark’s adult life was marked by profound personal tragedy alongside his intense cultural pursuits. He married his first wife, Mabel Duffield Foster, in 1901, but she died of post-partum sepsis in 1903 following the birth of their son, William Andrews "Tertius" Clark III. Clark married his second wife, Alice McManus, in 1907, but she also passed away prematurely in 1918. Tragedies culminated in 1932 when his only child, Tertius, died in an Arizona airplane crash.

Despite these personal losses, Clark emerged as one of Southern California's most influential cultural patrons. An accomplished amateur violinist, he founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919, personally funding its operations for fifteen years to establish a world-class orchestra in the city. He was also a vital financial backer in the construction and early development of the Hollywood Bowl, and supported higher education by funding Clark Hall at the University of Virginia as well as a memorial library at the University of Nevada, Reno, in honor of his second wife.

In the mid-1910s, Clark turned his attention to serious bibliomania, hiring bibliographer Robert E. Cowan in 1919 to assist with purchasing rare antiquarian books and manuscripts. To house his growing repository, Clark commissioned architect Robert D. Farquhar to construct a fireproof library on his West Adams estate in Los Angeles. Completed in 1926, this building became the permanent site for his magnificent collection, which he bequeathed to the University of California, Los Angeles upon his death.

Crucial to both Clark's private life and his collecting legacy were his romantic relationships with men, most notably with Harrison Post. Post served as Clark's long-term lover, business collaborator, and confidant. Clark placed Post in charge of the interior decoration of his specialized library, and tradition holds that the faces of thirteen nude figures painted across the library’s opulent ceiling were modeled after Post. Clark ensured Post lived comfortably in a mansion directly across the street from his own on Cimarron Street and ultimately established a substantial trust fund for him.

Together with Post, who co-transcribed Clark's extensive holding of Oscar Wilde's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas, Clark assembled one of the world's premier collections of Wildeana. A cornerstone of this collection became Harper Pennington’s famous 1884 life-sized portrait of Oscar Wilde, titled The Wedding Gift. The painting had originally hung above the fireplace in Wilde’s London home on Tite Street, serving as a prized possession that scholars believe may have subconsciously inspired Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Following Wilde’s infamous 1895 libel trial, conviction for gross indecency, and subsequent bankruptcy, his household assets were auctioned off. The portrait was sheltered by loyal friends Ernest and Ada Leverson while Wilde faced ruin. Decades later, Clark acquired the iconic canvas through Post, anchoring the library's status as a preeminent international archive for queer history and literature. The portrait eventually traveled back to the UK in 2017 to feature in Tate Britain's landmark Queer British Art 1861–1967 exhibition.

William Andrews Clark Jr. died of a heart attack on June 14, 1934, at Salmon Lake in Missoula County, Montana, at the age of 57. He was interred alongside his wives and son inside the grand Clark Family Mausoleum, which he had commissioned on an island at Sylvan Lake within Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. His legacy lives on through the Los Angeles Philharmonic and UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, which remains a landmark destination for literary researchers and scholars of LGBTQ+ history.

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