Harry Clarke, A Strange Genius
By Toby Coté
 
In Dublin, Ireland, I was fortunate to visit 2 galleries exhibiting one of my favourite stained glass artists, Harry Clarke (1889-1931). 
This exhibition was a collaboration between the National Museum of Ireland and the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland. 

Remembered by his former tutor A.E. Child as ‘one of the strangest geniuses of his time’.

Born in Dublin, Clarke was best known for church installations. He served as an apprentice in his father’s stained-glass business and was trained under the tutelage of Alfred Ernest Child (1875-1939) at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. He later returned as a teacher and established his own studio in Dublin.
 
Passionate about fairy tales and the romantic style of poetry, Clarke illustrated books by authors Hans Christian Anderson, Goethe and Edgar Allan Poe, taking inspiration from these works to create his stained glass in Art Nouveau and European Symbolism style.
 

Harry Clarke employed a unique technique involving aciding and plateing together double sheets of  glass to produce a variety of colour range gradations and tones, further embellished with layers of work using glass paints, resulting in a depth of colour, and assembled in lead. 
 
The first exhibit was at Collin Barracks in Dublin, Ireland. It was a temporary exhibit featuring eight smaller works by Harry Clarke. 

The photos below are of the piece ‘A Meeting’, by Harry Clarke, depicting a meeting between a mermaid and a merman.

From the information plaque, it reads:

        “The stained-glass panel shows two figures
             dancing among trees by a water’s edge,
            with other couples visible in the background.”
 
Clarke gained inspiration by a poem Heinrich Heine wrote:
All under the lime trees the music sounds,

And lads and lasses dance there, too;
A couple are dancing whom no one knows,
They are tall, and of noble air, too.”

The second exhibit was at the National Gallery of Ireland. The ‘Mother of Sorrows’ window was created by Harry Clarke with dimensions of 323.5 x 48 x 0.1 cm and 307.5 x 48 x 0.1 cm.

The Mother of Sorrows was commissioned by Sister Wilfrid in 1926 to commemorate the victims of World War I. Due to Sister Wilfrid’s sudden death, the window was installed in Glasgow on January 24th, 1927, and became her memorial. The first light depicts two angels praying with St. Francis of Assisi below, dressed in a brown habit and barefoot. The top panel of the second light features two angels. In the main panels, Mary, in royal blue robes, headdress, and cloak, holds her dead son in her arms. The top panel of the third light depicts two angels, with St. Catherine of Genoa below. 

Clarke died from tuberculosis at age 41 in Coire, Switzerland. A huge loss, but left us a remarkable body of work!