Harry Clarke and Artistic Visions of the New Irish State

Description

The work and career of the celebrated artist Harry Clarke is inextricably linked to the complex nature of early-twentieth-century Irish culture and of modernism. This beautifully designed and fully illustrated book assesses how Clarke and his studios responded to public and private commissions in glass and in illustration. Clarke’s contribution is analysed in the context of the quest for a cohesive identity by the new Irish Free State and situated within international art and design movements.

The book examines the complex relationship between visual art and literature that lies at the heart of Clarke’s contribution to post-independence society in Ireland. Its scholarly essays highlight the impact of patronage, public reception, advertising, propaganda, war and memory on Clarke’s work, placing it within a larger political, artistic and cultural context.

Essential reading for art lovers and scholars alike, Harry Clarke and Artistic Visions of the New Irish State will appeal to anyone interested in the arts of Ireland, and the history and development of early- to mid- twentieth-century visual and material culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction ~ Angela Griffith, Róisín Kennedy, Marguerite Helmers

1. Early Twentieth Century Irish Catholic Devotional Imagery: The Honan Chapel Windows ~ Ann Wilson, CIT
2. ‘A gorgeous gallery of poetic pictures’: Harry Clarke, Harold Jacob and John Keats’s ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ ~ Jessica O’Donnell
3. The Geneva Window: A Precious Gift, Never Given ~ Róisín Kennedy, UCD
4. Harry Clarke’s Natural World ~ Kelly Sullivan, NYU
5. Harry Clarke and Seán Keating: Art, Inspiration and the Aran Islands ~ Eimear O’Connor,
6. Marketing the Elixir of Life and Re-imagining Irishness: Harry Clarke’s Illustrations for Messrs John Jameson and Sons ~ Angela Griffith, TCD
7. Harry Clarke and the Dublin Magazine ~ Kathryn Milligan, UCD
8. Other Worlds in The Year’s at the Spring ~ Marguerite Helmers
9. Meeting Little Red Riding Hood Again: Harry Clarke and Charles Perrault ~ Jarlath Killeen
10. Illustrating Charles Algernon Swinburne ~ Elizabeth Helsinger
11. Clarke Studios and the Irish Foreign Missions: Windows with ‘A Very “Irish” Look’ in Africa ~ Fiona Bateman
12. Legacy and Identity: Harry Clarke, William Dowling and the Harry Clarke Studios ~ Paul Donnelly, TCD

Afterword ~ Luke Gibbons

About the Editors

Angela Griffith is an assistant professor with the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, TCD. Her research focuses on the art and agency of the printed image in Ireland.

Marguerite Helmers lectures in rhetoric and visual culture at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh; author of Harry Clarke’s War: Ireland’s Memorial Records, 1914–1918 (2015).

Roísín Kennedy teaches in the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at UCD; former Yeats Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland and Curator of the State Collection at Dublin Castle.