Harry Clarke (1889-1941) was Ireland's greatest stained-glass artist and book illustrator, one of the finest exponents of the visual arts this country has ever produced. His religious windows still emanate spiritual power and beauty in Catholic and Protestant churches all over Ireland. The books he illustrated were very popular in their time, two of the most successful being Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales and Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allen Poe.
The Clarke family story itself has elements of a fairy tale with a touch of Poe about it. The story begins in 1877 with Joshua Clarke's arrival in Dublin. He was an 18year-old English Protestant, penniless but hardworking, ambitious and shrewd. The boom in church building was at its height at about this time and was attracting many skilled and unskilled workers, including the father of Patrick and Willie Pearse, also an Englishman.
Joshua liked Dublin and decided to settle. He converted to Catholicism, married Bridget MacGonagle, a Catholic from Sligo, and added an "e" to his surname, because that is how Catholics spelt the name. Within a few years he had his own company, Joshua Clarke and Sons, indicating his confidence in the universe, as at the time he only had two infant daughters. His faith was rewarded. By a strange coincidence, Harry and Walter Clarke were both born on the March 17th, St Patrick's day, two years apart - Walter in 1887 and Harry in 1889.
They were very close to one another and were alike in many ways: tall, good-looking, gentle and whimsical. Walter loved opera, Harry the theatre and ballet. By happy coincidence, they married sisters, Margaret and Minnie Crilly from Newry. Walter had an eye for antiques and was passionately interested in cars. Harry, according to Sean Keating, was "endlessly amusing, a wonderful mimic, and a close and ironical observer of the human tragi-comedy". Almost to the end of their lives, they worked from the same premises, their father's firm, and then by tragic coincidence they died, still in their early forties, within six months of each other.
The Clarke family had a large, elegant house on North Frederick Street and a summer house in Bray. The boys went to Belvedere College, where Harry was somewhat shy and studious but noted for his clever caricatures. Then Joshua made a business decision that was an "open sesame" for Harry's artistic development. Although Joshua had little formal education and no particular interest in art, as an entrepreneur he could see that the production of stained glass would ideally complement his church decoration firm, so in 1892 he opened a glass studio in rooms in the family home. Harry was fascinated and spent so much time there that by the time he was 14 he was proficient in the craft and showing great promise.
Fortunately for Harry, Joshua admired his talent, recognised his potential and fostered it in every possible way. Whereas Walter uncomplainingly took his place as Joshua's eldest son in the family business, though he might have preferred to be another mechanic, Harry studied art and stained glass at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where he won the highest awards for his work. On graduating, he was awarded a travelling scholarship and went to France to study the stained glass of medieval cathedrals. Joshua was extremely proud of him and, packing his best suits and his beautiful silk opera hat, he joined his son in Paris for a celebratory holiday.
From then on, in what seems like a very tolerant arrangement, Harry used Joshua's studio facilities, for which he paid his father, but he only took on commissions in his own name. Soon, he began to establish a reputation for highly distinctive work. He was constantly experimenting, pushing back the limits of the medium until he became a virtuoso.
When Joshua died in 1921, Harry took over the running of J. Clarke and Sons, as well as doing his own work, which meant he had a permanent overload. Walter and Harry remained very close and Walter did what he could to ease things for Harry, but he wasn't an artist.
Overwork led to a serious deterioration in Harry's health in the late 1920s. To lessen the workload and concentrate more on his own commissions, Harry decided to separate the stained glass studio from the church decoration firm. In early 1930,Walter took over the management of Joshua Clarke & Sons, church decorators, and Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd was legally established.
But time had run out. In July of the same year, Walter died suddenly of pneumonia and the Clarke church decoration business died with him.
HARRY, already ill with TB, died in Switzerland six months later, in January 1931. He was buried there at his own request, but there is no longer any trace of his grave. It was "vacated" in 1950 and the headstone destroyed. No one had explained to Margaret that she would have to pay again after 15 years to retain it. Apparently, this was not unusual on parts of the continent.
Joshua Clarke and his sons were dead, but there had also been two daughters and they became the directors, along with Harry's widow, Margaret. The studios continued to design and execute windows in Harry's style and supported two Clarke sisters, two Clarke widows and nine Clarke children.
In the 1940s, Walter's son, Terence, and Harry's daughter, Ann, studied art and carried on the family business. Terence excelled at designing windows and Ann was a superb painter on glass. David Clarke, Harry's youngest son, is a painter but he also maintained an irregular, semi-freelance working relationship with the studio until its closure.
Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd finally closed in 1973 due to lack of business, a consequence of the directive of the second Vatican Council, which encouraged expenditure on education rather than on embellishment of churches.
Many people have had coffee, perhaps without realising it, under windows designed by Harry Clarke in the room called after him on the ground floor of Bewley's, Grafton Street. Others will be familiar with the exquisite "Eve of Saint Agnes" window, where he combines the art of book illustration and that of stained glass, and a haunting window of remorseful Judas about to hang himself. These were on view at the Hugh Lane gallery, Parnell Square, until last April but are currently in storage due to structural changes in the gallery.
Some will remember seeing the Geneva Window when it was on display in the Hugh Lane Gallery between 1963 and 1980. Few who saw it can have forgotten it. It illustrates extracts from the literature of 15 Irish writers of the early 20th century and was to be Ireland's gift to the International Labour Court at Geneva.
Why it now hangs in a museum off the beaten track in Miami is another story.
The work that first established Harry's reputation - and which he regarded as his best religious work - are 11 windows depicting Irish saints in the Honan Hostel chapel, Cork, in the grounds of UCC. Words, and space, are inadequate to describe this powerful native pantheon. They must be seen, especially now as the whole chapel, a treasure-trove of the finest in Irish arts and crafts in the early 20th century, has been lovingly restored. And if possible, today, St Patrick's Day and Harry Clarke's birthday, is a good day to see our patron saint as no one had ever portrayed him before: unsentimental, full of humanity, a dynamic leader of souls.
And spare a thought for Joshua, Walter and all those who loved and supported Harry's genius.
Fiana Griffin is writing a book on Harry Clarke's Geneva Window.