Clara McDonald Williamson, born in November 20, 1875 in Iradell Texas, was a 20th century American painter who worked in the tradition of naive art. Her subjects were genre scenes of life in the American West, and her home state of Texas. She began painting late in life and achieved a national reputation though her career lasted only two decades. She had little formal education or art training, and took up painting when she was well into her sixties. Starting in 1943, Williamson took several classes in drawing and painting at Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Museum School and began working on what she called “memory paintings” referring to incidents from her early rural life. Williamson’s paintings, with their genre subjects and simplified and stylized forms, are typical of American naïve art. She worked primarily in oil on canvas, painting from top to bottom which she explained kept the paint off of her clothes. Williamson—who became known as "Aunt Clara" within the art world—sold her first work shortly after beginning to paint. It was purchased by Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. She began entering her work in competitions, and soon had a solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, establishing a national reputation. In 1969, a documentary on Williamson was shown on national television. Williamson's success came despite her lack of interest in a career; she said once that she held back from the art world to some extent out of fear that "they'd tell me what to paint, how to paint it, and when to paint." She moved into a nursing home in 1966, where she completed the last of her more than 100 paintings. She passed away on February 17, 1976, aged 100. Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum as well as several other art museums and institutions.