Life
1889-1931; b. 17 March, Dublin, ed. Belvedere; son of Joshua Clark, an Englishman
who came to Dublin [aetat. 18], 1877, as decorator to participate in the
Catholic ecclesiastical building revival, with premises at 33, N. Frederick
St.; f. converted to Catholicism and changed name to Clarke; m. Bridget
MacGonagle; brought up on N. Frederick St.; ed. Belvedere; apprenticed
to his father in glass-studio, 1905; entered Dublin Metropolitan School
of Art with scholarship, 1910; Board of Education awards for stained-glass
1911, 1912, 1913; travelled to France on scholarship, 1914; Honan Chapel,
UCC, incl. eleven stain-glass windows with Celtic Twilight subject-matter,
completed 1917; took on the family firm (J. Clarke & Sons); did successful
book illustrations generally showing Beardsley’s symbolist influence;
health suffered from overwork, 1920s; death of Joshua Clarke, 1921; taught
graphic design at Dublin Metropolitan School of Art; RHA 1926; visited
Geneva as a convalescent in 1928, and returned in 1930, establishing studio
at Frederick St. premises; Walter took over and Harry established Harry
Clarke Stained Glass Ltd., 1930; church windows incl.
Castleknock and St. Joseph’s, Terenure, and Castlehaven, Co. Cork;
his commissioned scenes from modern Irish writers for the Irish League
of Nations building in Geneva, with scenes from Irish Literary Revival
authors, was largely completed in 1928 though not ready for viewing until
1930; displayed in the ante-chamber of the Executive Council of Dáil Eireann
for two years from 1931, following the decision that it was unsuitable
for the Geneva pavilion, and sold back to his widow in 1933; afterwards
sold to America in 1988; Walter d. July 1930; Harry d., 6 Jan. 1931, in
[Coire], Switzerland; grave vacated in 1946 and headstone destroyed; business
perpetuated by his son Terence and Walter’s dg. Ann; yngr. son David,
a painter; Harry Clarke Stained Glass closes, 1973. DIB BREF
Works
Ill. Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1916; US edn. c.1930),
Poe’s Tales of Mystery & Imagination, edns. of 1919-23;
ill. L. d’O. Walters’s anthology of contemporary poetry; also
The Year’s at the Spring (1920), The Fairy Tales of Perrault
(1922), Anster’s translation of Goethe’s Faust (1925)
for Harrap, and Selected Poems of A. C. Swinburne (1928) for Bodley
Head; designed first issue cover of Dublin Magazine for Seumas
O’Sullivan [James Starkey];indows in Holy Trinity, Killiney (1919);
illustrations of James Elroy Flecker’s poem ‘The Dying Patriot’
and completed stained glass miniatures of Synge’s poem “Queens”
(1919) as well as others based on Heine, Flaubert, and Keats; also a memorial
window for the Dempsey family, at Lusk; most often viewed is probably
the Henry Clarke windows in Bewleys’ Café, Grafton St. Dublin; “Eve of St. Agnes”, Municipal Gallery; Geneva Window displayed
in Municipal (Hugh Lane) Gallery, 1963-1980; illustrates extracts from
15 Irish writers; intended gift to International Court, Geneva; 11 windows
in Honan Hostel Chapel, Cork (UCC); Diseart Chapel, Dingle.
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Criticism
Nicola Gordon Bowe, ‘Wilhelmina Geddes, Harry Clarke and their part
in the Arts and Crafts Movement of Ireland’, in The Journal of
Decorative and Propaganda Arts [DAPA], No. 8 (Miami 1988); Nicola
Gordon Bowe, ‘Symbolism in Turn of the Century Irish Art’, in
Irish Review (1989-90), pp.133-44; Bowe, The Life and Work of
Harry Clarke (IAP 1989; 1994) [pb. edn.], and Do. [rep. edn.] (IAP 2004), 352pp. [hb. & pb.]; Andrew Haggarty,
‘Stained Glass and Censorship: The Suppression of Harry Clarke’s Geneva
Window, 1931’, in New Hibernia Review/Iris Eireannach Nua,
3, 4 (1999), pp.99-117.
See also Virginia Teehan & Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, eds., The Honan Chapel: A Golden Vision (Cork UP 2004), 288pp.
Fiana Griffin, ‘The Glass Master’, in The Irish Times, 17 March 2000, Weekend, [feature article].
Nicola Gordon Bowe, ‘Wilhelmina Geddes, Harry Clarke and their part in the Arts and Crafts Movement of Ireland’, The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts [DAPA], No. 8, (Miami 1988).
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Notes
Hyland Catalogue 219 (1995) lists Lennox Robinson, The Whiteheaded
Boy: Play in Three Acts (n.d. [?1918]) [cover designed by Harry Clarke].
Web page at www.artnet.com/library/01/0179/T017970.asp.
Áras an Uachtarain: a small framed stained-glass recently discovered in Áras an Uachtarain, now stands in the private chapel of the President of Ireland.
Eoin Duignan has created a traditional Irish music suite in response to Harry Clarke stained glass windows at Diseart chapel, Dingle, Siobhán Long, ‘Windows to the soul’, in The Irish Times, 30 July 2004.)
Bewleys’, Ltd.: Bewley’s Cafés, Dublin, in whose Grafton St. branch a number of Harry Clarke stained-glass windows are housed, confirmed that it may remove the windows from Grafton Street when it closes the café there, See Irish Times, 30 October 2004.) Note, a Harry Clarke window, removed from Mungret College at its closure in the 1970s, forms a feature of the renovated café at Westmoreland St., also due to close.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)