Henry Ray Clark, a folk artist born in Bartlett, Texas in 1936, moved to Houston when he was just a boy. Handsome, with deep blue eyes, he came to be known on the streets of Houston as "Pretty Boy" and then "The Magnificent Pretty Boy", either by his own naming or by one of the many women who knew him.

Clark's life of drug dealing, pimping, and other hustles always left him feeling like the next score would set him up for life. After a series of drug dealing convictions he was found guilty of an assault, his third strike in the Texas Three Strikes Law, which sentenced him to 25 years in Huntsville State Prison.

Clark began to draw after being introduced to the prison arts program, and he found that drawing provided him with a release from the confinement of prison. He drew with green, black and red ball point pens on any scrap of paper he could find — from envelopes to prison menus.

Clark created images of far off galactic worlds inhabited by powerful beings, describing his gladiators and cosmic visions with razor-sharp outlines, covering every millimeter of the surface with the color inks.

His characteristic drawing style involving detailed patterning and line work caught the eye of William Steen at a prison art show. Steen, was a Houston artist who had helped change the contemporary art world in Houston and become a catalyst for the advancement of "outsider artists", such as Clark.

With Steen's help, Clark found an enthusiastic reception in the wider world and his work was soon being sold to national and international buyers. After winning a prize in the "Texas Department of Corrections Art Show," he was exhibited in "Living Folk" at Hirschl & Adler Folk Gallery in New York in 1990; "Passionate Visions of the American South," New Orleans Museum of Art, 1993, and "Spirited Journeys: Self-Taught Texas Artists of the Twentieth Century," 1997.

On July 13, 2006, Clark, 69, was shot by two home invaders; he remained in a coma and on life support until his death on July 29, 2006.

Written and submitted by Alice DeGregori (Morales), owner of work by the artist