Overview

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.

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9781788550451

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Reviews

Harry Clarke and Artistic Visions of the Irish Free State proves the case for the pre-eminence of Clarke among Irish artists. His work can be read in a variety of ways--as modernist, late Victorian, political, even apolitical, but whichever way one argues about interpretations it is hard to question his achievements ... This book will help to ensure that Clarke finally gets the recognition he deserves and we should all be grateful. --Dublin Review of Books This beautifully designed and illustrated collection of essays helps one to begin to understand rather than simply be beguiled by such startling excess. --Apollo Magazine [This] new book reclaims Clarke as a modern artist. It sets him at the heart of the nascent Irish Free State, negotiating the secular and the sacred at a time when the twin powers of state and church collided and colluded ... 'Ethereal and beautiful and, in its wit and contemporaneity, strangely compassionate, ' his art reflects an Irish society 'much more cosmopolitan, sophisticated and aesthetically aware than has normally been acknowledged.' --The Guardian

Author Information

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.

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