Harry Clarke
Encyclopedia
Harry Clarke was an Irish
stained glass
artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement
.
The son of a craftsman, Joshua Clarke, Clarke the younger was exposed to art (and in particular Art Nouveau
) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College
in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel
, Bishop
of Longford
, by St. Patrick
won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.
Completing his education in his main field, Clarke travelled to London
, where he sought employment as a book illustrator. Picked up by London publisher Harrap, he started with two commissions which were never completed: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
(his work on which was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising
) and an illustrated edition of Alexander Pope
's The Rape of the Lock
.
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Difficulties with these projects made Hans Christian Andersen
's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work, however, in 1916—a title that included 16 colour plates and more than 24 monotone illustrations. This was closely followed by an illustrations for an edition of Edgar Allan Poe
's Tales of Mystery and Imagination: the first version of that title was restricted to monotone illustrations, while a second iteration with 8 colour plates and more than 24 monotone images was published in 1923.
The latter of these made his reputation as a book illustrator (this was during the golden age of gift-book illustration in the first quarter of the twentieth century: Clarke's work can be compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley
, Kay Nielsen
, and Edmund Dulac
). It was followed by editions of The Years at the Spring, containing 12 colour plates and more than 14 monotone images; (Lettice D'O. Walters, ed., 1920), Charles Perrault
's Fairy Tales of Perrault, and Goethe's Faust
, containing 8 colour plates and more than 70 monotone and duotone images (New York: Hartsdale House,1925). The last of these is perhaps his most famous work, and prefigures the disturbing imagery of 1960s psychedelia.
Two of his most sought-after titles include promotional booklets for Jameson Irish Whiskey
: A History of a Great House (1924, and subsequent reprints) and Elixir of Life (1925), which was written by Geofrey Warren.
His final book was Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne
, which was published in 1928. In the meantime, he had also been working hard in stained glass, producing more than 130 windows, he and his brother, Walter, having taken over his father's studio after his death in 1921.
Stained glass is central to Clarke's career. His glass is distinguished by the finesse of its drawing, unusual in the medium, his use of rich colours (inspired by an early visit to see the stained glass of the Cathedral of Chartres
, he was especially fond of deep blues), and an innovative integration of the window leading as part of the overall design (his use of heavy lines in his black and white book illustrations is probably derived from his glass techniques).
Clarke's stained glass work includes many religious windows but also much secular stained glass. Highlights of the former include the windows of the Honan Chapel
in University College Cork, of the latter, a window illustrating John Keats
' The Eve of St. Agnes
(now in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery
in Dublin) and the Geneva Window. Perhaps his most seen work was the windows of Bewley's Café
on Dublin's Grafton Street
.
Unfortunately, ill health plagued both the Clarke brothers, and worn down by the pace of their work, and perhaps the toxic chemicals used in stained glass production, both died within a year of each other—Harry second in early 1931, of tuberculosis
while trying to recuperate in Switzerland
.
Clarke's work was influenced by both the passing Art Nouveau
and coming Art Deco
movements. His stained glass was particularly informed by the French Symbolist movement.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
.
History
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College
Belvedere College
Belvedere College SJ is a private secondary school for boys located on Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland. It is also known as St. Francis Xavier's College....
in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel
Saint Mel
Saint Mel or Moel died in 488. He is said to have been a Briton who came to Ireland with Saint Patrick, his uncle, with whom he worked until he was ordained in Ardagh. He helped evangelize Ireland while supporting himself through manual labor. He is one of the earliest Irish saints and gave the...
, Bishop
Bishop (Catholic Church)
In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders and is responsible for teaching the Catholic faith and ruling the Church....
of Longford
Longford
Longford is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 7,622 according to the 2006 census. Approximately one third of the county's population resides in the town. Longford town is also the biggest town in the county...
, by St. Patrick
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick was a Romano-Briton and Christian missionary, who is the most generally recognized patron saint of Ireland or the Apostle of Ireland, although Brigid of Kildare and Colmcille are also formally patron saints....
won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition.
Completing his education in his main field, Clarke travelled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he sought employment as a book illustrator. Picked up by London publisher Harrap, he started with two commissions which were never completed: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–98 and was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 that featured a gloss...
(his work on which was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
) and an illustrated edition of Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's The Rape of the Lock
The Rape of the Lock
The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos , but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope's name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version...
.
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work, however, in 1916—a title that included 16 colour plates and more than 24 monotone illustrations. This was closely followed by an illustrations for an edition of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
's Tales of Mystery and Imagination: the first version of that title was restricted to monotone illustrations, while a second iteration with 8 colour plates and more than 24 monotone images was published in 1923.
The latter of these made his reputation as a book illustrator (this was during the golden age of gift-book illustration in the first quarter of the twentieth century: Clarke's work can be compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
, Kay Nielsen
Kay Nielsen
Kay Rasmus Nielsen was a Danish illustrator who was popular in the early 20th century, the "golden age of illustration" which lasted from when Daniel Vierge and other pioneers developed printing technology to the point that drawings and paintings could be reproduced with reasonable facility...
, and Edmund Dulac
Edmund Dulac
Edmund Dulac was a French book illustrator.-Early life and career:Born in Toulouse, France, he began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse. He also studied art, switching to it full time after he became bored with law, and having won prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts...
). It was followed by editions of The Years at the Spring, containing 12 colour plates and more than 14 monotone images; (Lettice D'O. Walters, ed., 1920), Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , Cendrillon , Le Chat Botté and La Barbe bleue...
's Fairy Tales of Perrault, and Goethe's Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
, containing 8 colour plates and more than 70 monotone and duotone images (New York: Hartsdale House,1925). The last of these is perhaps his most famous work, and prefigures the disturbing imagery of 1960s psychedelia.
Two of his most sought-after titles include promotional booklets for Jameson Irish Whiskey
Jameson Irish Whiskey
Jameson is a single distillery Irish whiskey produced by a division of the French distiller Pernod Ricard. Jameson is similar in its adherence to the single distillery principle to the single malt tradition, but Jameson combines malted barley with unmalted or "green" barley...
: A History of a Great House (1924, and subsequent reprints) and Elixir of Life (1925), which was written by Geofrey Warren.
His final book was Selected Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
, which was published in 1928. In the meantime, he had also been working hard in stained glass, producing more than 130 windows, he and his brother, Walter, having taken over his father's studio after his death in 1921.
Stained glass is central to Clarke's career. His glass is distinguished by the finesse of its drawing, unusual in the medium, his use of rich colours (inspired by an early visit to see the stained glass of the Cathedral of Chartres
Cathedral of Chartres
The French medieval Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres is a Latin Rite Catholic cathedral located in Chartres, about southwest of Paris, is considered one of the finest examples of the French High Gothic style...
, he was especially fond of deep blues), and an innovative integration of the window leading as part of the overall design (his use of heavy lines in his black and white book illustrations is probably derived from his glass techniques).
Clarke's stained glass work includes many religious windows but also much secular stained glass. Highlights of the former include the windows of the Honan Chapel
Honan Chapel
The Honan Chapel is located on the grounds of University College Cork in Cork city, Ireland.-Irish Arts & Crafts movement :The chapel, and its liturgical collection, was produced during the late phase of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement . Both the building and furnishings were designed and...
in University College Cork, of the latter, a window illustrating John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
' The Eve of St. Agnes
The Eve of St. Agnes
"The Eve of St. Agnes" is a long poem by John Keats, written in 1819 and published in 1820. It is widely considered to be amongst his finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature. The poem is in Spenserian stanzas....
(now in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery
Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane is an art gallery funded by Dublin City Council and located in Charlemont House in Dublin, Ireland. Charlemont House was originally the town house of James Caulfeild, the 1st Earl of Charlemont and was designed by Sir William Chambers.Previously called the...
in Dublin) and the Geneva Window. Perhaps his most seen work was the windows of Bewley's Café
Bewley's
Bewley's Limited is an Irish company, established in 1840, that produces tea and coffee for sale around the world. The company is owned by Campbell Bewley Group Ltd....
on Dublin's Grafton Street
Grafton Street, Dublin
Grafton Street is one of the two principal shopping streets in Dublin city centre, the other being Henry Street. It runs from St. Stephen's Green in the south to College Green in the north...
.
Unfortunately, ill health plagued both the Clarke brothers, and worn down by the pace of their work, and perhaps the toxic chemicals used in stained glass production, both died within a year of each other—Harry second in early 1931, of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
while trying to recuperate in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
Clarke's work was influenced by both the passing Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
and coming Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
movements. His stained glass was particularly informed by the French Symbolist movement.
See also
- British and Irish stained glass (1811–1918)
- An Túr GloineAn Túr GloineAn Túr Gloine was a cooperative studio for stained glass conceived in late 1901 and established January 1903 at 24 Pembroke Street, Dublin, Ireland, on the site of two former tennis courts. It was active throughout the first half of the 20th century...
, stained glass firm with which Clarke was associated - Harry Clarke - Darkness In LightHarry Clarke - Darkness In Light'Harry Clarke - Darkness In Light' is a documentary film originally released in 2003 .-Synopsis:...
- List of people on stamps of Ireland
Sources
- Nicola Gordon Bowe. 1994. The Life and Work of Harry Clarke (Irish Academic Press)
- Martin Moore Steenson. 2003. A Bibliographical Checklist of the Work of Harry Clarke (Books & Things)
- John J Doherty. 2003. Harry Clarke - Darkness In LightHarry Clarke - Darkness In Light'Harry Clarke - Darkness In Light' is a documentary film originally released in 2003 .-Synopsis:...
A film on the life and work of Harry Clarke (Camel Productions) - Lucy Costigan and Michael Cullen. 2010. Strangest Genius: The Stained Glass of Harry Clarke (The History Press Ireland)