Harry Clarke: Permanent Collection

One of Ireland’s best-known and loved artists, Harry Clarke was born in Dublin in 1889, and trained in the art of stained glass in his father’s church decorating workshop, and in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. While he went on to develop a unique style that was very much influenced by Symbolism, the three windows in the Harry Clarke room on the second floor of the Crawford Art Gallery are important works. Purchased directly from the artist by the Gibson Bequest Committee in 1924, The Consecration of St Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St Patrick (1910), The Godhead Enthroned (1911), and The Meeting of St Brendan with the Unhappy Judas (1911), were made between 1910 and 1911 while Clarke was still a student at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. He was awarded a gold medal for the windows at the South Kensington National Competitions in 1911, to which students from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland sent work. Just a few years later, in 1915, Clarke received the commission that made his name as a stained glass artist: eleven windows for the Honan Chapel on the grounds of what is now University College Cork.

The meeting of St. Brendan with the unhappy Judas
1911
Irish School
Painted, acided stained glass
66.7 x 51.4cm