The daughter of Robert Clark and Estelle Goodman Clark, Adèle Goodman Clark was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 27, 1882. After her family moved to Richmond in about 1894, she enrolled in the Virginia Randolph Ellett School (later St. Catherine's School), graduated in 1901, and studied art with Lilly M. Logan at the Art Club of Richmond. In 1906 she was awarded a scholarship to the Chase School of Art (later the New York School of Art and eventually the Parsons School of Design), where she studied with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri.

When Clark returned to Virginia, she began teaching classes in illustration at the Art Club of Richmond, and later established the Atelier with fellow artist Nora Houston. Their studio became a training ground for a generation of artists.

In November 1909, Clark attended a meeting to discuss the establishment of a statewide suffrage organization. At this first meeting of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, Clark was elected secretary. She helped direct legislative initiatives, designed postcards, organized suffrage rallies, and went on speaking tours that helped establish new chapters throughout the state. Despite the efforts of the league (and Clark's as chair of the ratification committee in 1919 and 1920), Virginia was one of the nine southern states that refused to grant the vote to women.

Clark was selected as the first chair of the newly organized League of Women Voters in 1920 and became president in 1921—a position she held for nineteen years (from 1921 until 1925 and again from 1929 until 1944). Her work involving social issues and governmental efficiency expanded in 1924 when she was elected to the board of the National League of Women Voters as director of the third region, which included Washington, D.C., Virginia, and several other southern states. From 1925 until 1928 she was second vice president of the national league.

In 1926, Clark accepted a job as acting social director and dean of women at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Soon after she started, an article on the front page of the Virginia Gazette ran a headline reporting that "Women Lead Men in Scholarship—Women Students Outdo Men in Nearly All Academic Courses." Clark later recalled that the college administration pressed her to discourage female students from smoking, and that she had to stop smoking herself (although she soon resumed her pack-a-day habit).

Clark was employed by two important New Deal–era agencies. She first worked as a field supervisor for the National Reemployment Service (beginning in 1933), and later became the Virginia Arts Project director of the Work Projects Administration (1936–1942), working to provide employment opportunities for artists in the state.

In the later years of her life, Clark remained a supporter of the Richmond's art community and was instrumental in the establishment of the Virginia Art Commission, serving as a member from 1941 to 1964. She also stayed vocal on issues of political concern. On February 2, 1973, the Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a photograph of Clark on the front page of with the skeptical headline, "Beginning of an ERA?" The ninety-year-old Clark showed up at the Highway Department auditorium—the largest meeting room near the Capitol—along with 800 others to express her opinion on the Equal Rights Amendment. As usual, Clark did not mince words. "This is an appalling amendment," she told the audience. "It reflects the thinking of fifty years ago. They are fighting a battle that has already been won."

Adèle Clark died on June 4, 1983, at the age of one hundred.