# McClelland Barclay artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/mcclelland-barclay/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T20:13:50.025Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: American
- Common media: Illustration, Design work, Magazine illustration

## Portrait

![McClelland Barclay](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/McClelland_Barclay%2C_1933.jpg)
Los Angeles Times · CC BY 4.0
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McClelland_Barclay,_1933.jpg

## About McClelland Barclay

McClelland Barclay (1891–1943) was an American illustrator and designer whose career connected commercial art, magazine publishing, and wartime naval service. Authority records consistently identify him as an American artist, illustrator, and designer. A biographical summary reports that his work appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and Cosmopolitan by the time he was 21, placing him within early twentieth-century American mass-market illustration. Barclay entered the U.S. Naval Reserve as a lieutenant in 1938 and went on active duty after the attack on Pearl Harbor; he held the rank of lieutenant commander when he died in 1943. Collectors may therefore encounter his name on illustration-related and design-related material, particularly work connected with publishing or the period's commercial visual culture. The available sources do not establish a formal art movement, catalogue raisonné, or complete career chronology, so such classifications should not be inferred from this evidence alone.

## Common works and media

The source-supported work types are illustrations and design-related material. The collected biography specifically connects Barclay with magazine publishing, including The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and Cosmopolitan. The source pack does not substantiate a broader inventory of paintings, sculpture, jewelry, posters, prints, editions, or recurring subjects. Objects in those categories should be classified as Barclay's work only when stronger museum, catalogue, publication, or auction-house documentation supports the attribution.

## Market and appraisal context

Appraisal research should begin by separating illustration work from broader design material and documenting the object's date, intended use, and any connection to a named publication. Those distinctions are relevant because authority records describe Barclay as both an illustrator and a designer, while the biographical source identifies early magazine publication. The present source pack contains no usable major-auction-house record, category breakdown, condition analysis, edition data, or comparable realized-price evidence. It therefore does not support price forecasts or claims that one medium, subject, or period commands a premium. When public auction records are available, comparisons should be limited to genuinely similar work types and considered alongside attribution, sale date, and the quality of the supporting documentation.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist-identity research with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For McClelland Barclay, the present identity evidence is stronger than the collected market evidence, so market conclusions should remain provisional.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6800323
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/58700966/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McClelland_Barclay
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McClelland_Barclay,_1933.jpg