Happy Birthday Harry Clarke
Posted on: 17 March 2016
Trinity and Google team up to celebrate renowned Irish artist's birthday with new online exhibition
The birthday of one of the most renowned Irish artists, Harry Clarke, was celebrated yesterday on St Patrick’s Day with the launch by Trinity College Dublin and Google Cultural Institute of an online exhibition featuring highlights from his family's stained glass studio archive.
The Clarke Stained Glass Studios in Dublin was responsible for hundreds of stained glass windows for churches all over Ireland, the UK, the US, Canada, Africa and Asia for over 80 years. Harry Clarke, born on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1889, is one of the most highly regarded Irish artists of the 20th century and was at the helm of the family business between the years 1921 and his death in 1931.
Highlights from the archives of the studio, a treasure trove of design and business documents, will be brought to a global audience thanks to the collaboration between the Library of Trinity College Dublin and Google. The Clarke Stained glass studio collection, launched on Google Cultural Institute features 26 digital assets including beautiful pencil drawings, ink and wash designs, photographs and business correspondence drawn from the Studio's archive, which is now held in the Library. The exhibition also features a short film about the archive and the work of the studio.
A much larger digital resource, featuring some 15,000 items from the archive including stained glass designs, architects' blueprints, photographs, commissioning letters, order books and financial records, will also be available online to researchers and the general public through Trinity’s Digital Collections.
This new digital resource will allow researchers and the public to trace the evolution of some of the hundreds of stained glass windows produced at the business from 'back-of-the-envelope' pencil sketches to the final presentation designs that were sent to clients. While only a few original designs by the hand of Harry Clarke survive in the archive, the Studio’s designs resonate with his influence. These designs and the accompanying business documents and order books will open up new research avenues for clarifying authorship of unattributed windows.
The collection is one of the most complete artistic business archives in Ireland, according to Dr Marta Bustillo, Assistant Librarian, who has been working on the project along with Joanne Carroll, Digital Photographer of the Digital Resources and Imaging Services.
“The meticulously kept archive sheds light on the practices of a leading 20th-century studio. The Google exhibition will be of great interest to the general public and art lovers keen to get a feel for the creative processes of the stained glass studios where Harry Clarke worked. Additionally, the new digital resource, housed at Trinity's Digital Collections, will be of interest to art history researchers and social historians interested in investigating the back story of the many hundreds of stained glass windows created by the studio dotted around Ireland and the world."
Felicity O'Mahony, Assistant Librarian, who was involved in the acquisition of the design archive by the Library, added: “By reuniting the business archive, presented to Trinity in 1973, with the creative archive, acquired in 2002, it will now be possible to plot the development of windows in churches and museums all over the world from original order right through the commissioning and design process, through to the final execution and payment. We can now get the most complete picture of how the studios worked.”
Helen Shenton, Librarian and College Archivist, said: “The Library of Trinity College Dublin is delighted to be partnering with Google Cultural Institute on the Clarke Stained Glass Studio Exhibition. Bringing this fascinating archive to new audiences through the online Google exhibition and the more in-depth online resource forms part of the Library’s commitment to opening up its historical collections to an online global audience.”
Ronan Harris, Vice-President and Head of Google in Ireland said; “Harry Clarke created stunning works of art that live in the memory long after they have first been viewed. We are fortunate in Ireland to be able to easily see them in locations such as the Honan Chapel in UCC or the Diseart Institute in Dingle and now we are delighted to collaborate with Trinity College to bring the genius of Harry Clarke to a global audience on the Google Cultural Institute”.
The Clarke Stained Glass Studio Exhibition is Trinity’s third collaboration with Google Cultural Institute, which partners with museums, art galleries and archives around the world, to make important cultural material available and accessible to everyone. Previous exhibitions launched by Google are Great War Revisited and The Ruins of Dublin, 1916.
More about the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Collection
The Clarke Stained Glass Studios Collection contains stained glass designs, colour schemes, opus sectile designs, architects' blueprints and plans, photographs, documentation about sales and orders, correspondence, financial records, staffing records, and research documentation related to stained glass work executed by the Clarke Studios, Dublin from 1893 to 1973.
Joshua Clarke moved to Ireland from Leeds in 1877, and initially worked with a firm of ecclesiastical suppliers. By 1887 Clarke had established his own business as a church decorator, had married Bridget McGonigal, and was running his business from leased premises at 33 North Frederick Street, behind Parnell Square in Dublin. The stained glass designs that survive from this period are very traditional, often taken from stock sheets provided by stained glass suppliers.
Joshua and Bridget Clarke’s eldest son Walter was born in 1888 and Harry was born on St Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1889. Bridget Clarke died in 1903, when Harry was only 14. By then Harry had already shown an aptitude for drawing, and it is likely that he had done some work for his father’s stained glass firm even before leaving school. Harry worked as an apprentice draughtsman for the architect Thomas McNamara in 1904; in 1905 he attended night classes at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. There are a number of drawings by J. Clarke & Sons from the period between 1903 and 1920 which, despite lacking his signature, may have been designed by Harry Clarke, as they are particularly fine.
Joshua Clarke died in 1921, and after that his two sons, Walter and Harry, took over the running of the firm. By this time, Harry had become a highly successful artist in his own right, having completed the windows for the Honan Chapel in Cork. The ten years between 1921 and 1931 were a period of intense activity both for Clarke personally, and for the firm, which eventually had a very negative effect on Harry’s health. Trinity College’s archive contains several designs dating from this period.
By 1930 the firm had been renamed Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd. Although Harry Clarke died on January 6, 1931, for many years afterwards the Clarke Studios produced designs which replicated Harry Clarke’s style, quite likely because clients themselves requested it. In the 1960s and 1970s the Studios incorporated more modern elements into their designs. The materials in the Clarke Collection often show the process by which an artwork evolved from the ideas of the client, to pencil sketches, and the final colour design.
After Harry's death his wife Margaret Clarke ran the firm assisted by a series of highly talented studio managers until her own death in 1961. Harry’s sisters Dolly and Lally Clarke managed the administrative side of the business.
The firm worked extensively outside Ireland, this being reflected in the material in the Archive, which documents commissions in the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and several African countries. The firm closed down in 1973.
The business archive was donated to Trinity College Library by the Clarke family in 1973, and the design archive was acquired by Trinity College Library from David Clarke in October 2002.