Attorney General: Thomas C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, on September 23, 1899. He earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas and was admitted to the Texas bar in 1922. From 1922 to 1927, he was a member of his father’s law firm, Clark & Clark. In 1927, Clark was civil district attorney for Dallas County, Texas. Clark was a special attorney in the Department of Justice’s Bureau of War Risk Litigation in 1937 and a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division in 1938. From 1940 to 1942, he served as Chief of the West Coast Offices in the Antitrust Division. In 1942, he was named Coordinator of Alien Enemy Control of the Western Defense Command, and Chief of the Civilian Staff for Japanese War Relocation. In 1943, he served as Chief of the War Frauds Unit and first assistant to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division. In August 1943, Clark was named Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division.
President Harry S. Truman appointed Clark as Attorney General of the United States on July 1, 1945. He held that office until 1949, when he was appointed Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Clark retired from the Court in 1967. He died in New York City on June 13, 1977.
Martha Kempton was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1901. She studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna National Academy of Design before emigrating to the United States in 1926. She was chosen by the Truman family to do the official White House portraits of President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Elizabeth (Bess) Wallace Truman. She also painted their daughter, Margaret, and members of Truman's cabinet such as Secretary of the Treasury John Wesley Snyder and Secretary of the Interior Julius Krug. Kempton painted Attorney General Clark's portrait in 1950. She died in 1991 in New York.