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Casualty Info
Home Town St. Louis, Missouri
Last Address Killed in Action, Lost at Sea aboard LST-342, sunk at Rendova, New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, 1943.
Casualty Date Jul 18, 1943
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Torpedoed
Location Solomon Islands
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Buried at Sea, Pacific Ocean
Wall/Plot Coordinates Lost at sea, body not recovered.
McClelland Barclay was born 9 May 1891, St. Louis, Missouri. He attended grammar school and high school in the area and studied art at Washington University, in St. Louis. During those years he was a student of H. C. Ives, George Bridgman and Thomas Fogarty.
After moving to New York, he began his career as a magazine illustrator in 1912. He quickly became know for his ability to paint strikingly beautiful women in a rather simple setting using bold colors. This is best exemplified by a series of paintings he did for General Motors, which carried the slogan of "Body by Fisher". Some of his more noteworthy advertising clients included Lever Brothers Company, Frigidaire, A&P, Elgin Watches, and especially Humming Bird Hosiery.
He also illustrated fiction for many of the large circulation magazines. His use of color and his ability to capture the flowing grace of his subjects, made his covers for The Saturday Evening Post and Country Gentleman particularly memorable.
During World War I he was awarded a prize by the Committee on National Preparedness in 1917 for his poster "Fill the Breach." The next year, he designed naval camouflage under the direction of William Mackay, Chief of the New York District Emergency Fleet Corporation.
He married in 1930 to Helen Barclay and almost immediately began to expand into areas of interest that included jewelry design, sculpting in metal and utilitarian decorative items for the home. Under the name of McClelland Barclay Art Company he manufactured such items as bowls, boxes, pins, bookends and wall hangings out of metal. He produced many sculpted pieces of women in dramatic poses and scenes that included animals and nature.
He was appointed a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II and began serving as a combat artist. Many of his covers appeared on the cover of Sea Power magazine because of his realistic rendering of action scenes. He was also commissioned to paint portraits of the officers and develop propaganda posters to encourage support of the war effort.
Appointed a Lt. Commander, Barclay worked on further camouflage assignments until 1942. Lt. Commander Barclay was killed in action in 1943 when a Japanese submarine torpedoed the LST he was aboard in the Solomon Islands as it approached New Georgia Island.
He was a man of many talents and interest that seemed to thrive in dynamic environments and died while doing what he loved most.
