Ordinarily, we would have acted like a reasonably sober composer-website and led off with a slightly less lurid, more informative headline, but “Rebecca Clarke, Viola-Player and Composer—Meeting All Your Family’s Rebecca Clarke Tchotchke Needs Since 2020!” ran a little long, even for the debut of our new Shop page.
Be that as it may, if you ever feel moved to regale yourself, or those you love, with Rebecca Clarke socks, leggings, miniskirts, iPhone cases, laptop skins, greeting cards, throw-pillows, bathmats, or a host of other useful and amusing products, then Arty Margit is your go-to place. The brainchild of Margit van der Zwan, a cellist and artist based in Manchester, England, Arty Margit sells a vast line of composer-related products through Etsy and Redbubble, covering just about everyone who’s great and cool, from Hildegard of Bingen to Arvo Pärt and Kaija Saariaho, in really snazzy designs and terrific colors.
Margit’s design for Rebecca Clarke—based on one of Clarke’s most striking publicity-shots, by Louis Langfier, of 23 Old Bond Street, W., London, dating from around 1923—brings out the strong profile and commanding presence of a highly public figure who stood nearly six feet tall in her prime, and reportedly “strode on stage like a goddess.”
And lest you think there’s anything even slightly out-of-character about this, remember that Clarke was a committed clotheshorse who swanned through everything from Vogue, to the style-page of The Sphere (“The Empire’s Illustrated Weekly”), to “Pall Mall”’s syndicated gossip-column, to the front page (above the fold) of Honolulu’s Pacific Commercial Advertiser, and was known to pop off lines like, “Oh, no, darlings!”—this to her goggle-eyed nieces—“You must save your white gowns until after you’ve come back from the South of France!”
You might want to start with Arty Margit’s basic print, sold here, but after that the sky’s the limit, with everything from travel-mugs to a (regrettably) up-to-the-minute face-mask, sold here (and be sure to scroll down the page and click on the arrow following “Available on +48 products”).
We’re not sure what Clarke would have made of all this, but she was never one for postponing joy, so why should you? Besides, it’s not every day you get to patronize an artist who has actually played the Kit Kat Klub.
Rebecca Clarke 