Clarke, Harry (1889–1931)

Irish stained-glass artist and illustrator. His style, both in glass and in his illustration work, is a personal interpretation of the stylized naturalism of Art Nouveau. His glass is minutely detailed, with jewel-like colours and patterns, obtained through painstaking acid etching of coloured glass. Major glass commissions included the Honan College Chapel, Cork (1914–16), and the secular Eve of Saint Agnes (1923–24), now in the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin. His illustration was initially similar in style to Aubrey Beardsley, but rapidly became far more individual, with the same precise detail and feel for pattern and composition as his glass.

Born in Dublin, Clarke studied stained glass with the English artist A E Child (1875–1939). Among the books he illustrated were Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen (1916) and Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1919). His glass work, The Geneva Window (1929; Mitchell Wolfson Jr Collection, Miami, USA), which depicts scenes from 20th-century Irish literature, was commissioned by the Irish government but was not accepted on its completion due to the originality with which he dealt with the subject. His work may also be seen in Bewley's Café, Grafton Street, Dublin.