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Ref No
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IE TCD MSS 5970-6167
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Title
| Clarke Stained Glass Studios, Dublin: business papers |
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Creation Dates
| 1893-1973 |
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Extent And Medium
| 110 volumes, 83 boxes, 14 folders |
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Level Of Description
| Collection |
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Author
| Clarke Stained Glass Studios, Dublin |
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Admin Biographical History
| Joshua Clarke (1858-1921) moved to Ireland from Leeds in 1875 and by 1886 he had secured a lease on 33 North Frederick St, Dublin where he established his business as 'Church Decorator, Manufacturer of objects of Art and Sanitary Contractor'. He married Brigid MacGonigal (died 1903) from Cliffoney, co Sligo. They had two sons, Walter (1888-1930) and Henry ('Harry') Patrick (1889-1931), and two daughters Kathleen ('Lally') and Florence ('Dolly'). Harry Clarke studied at the Dublin Metropolitan school of Art and later at the South Kensington Schools of Design, winning scholarships to both. In 1907 Harry was registered as a stained glass apprentice in his father's Studios. He won several awards including a travelling scholarship to France in 1914. Clarke excelled not only as a stained glass artist but also as a book illustrator. Harry Clarke married artist Margaret Crilly (1888-1961) in 1914 and his brother Walter married her sister Minnie Crilly in 1915. Joshua Clarke died in 1921 but his sons were determined to keep the business going with Harry taking over management of the stained glass Studios and Walter responsible for the decorating business which was eventually wound up in 1930. In 1924 the company moved to larger premises at nos 6-7 North Frederick St.
This collection covers the early days of stained glass design and church decoration under the company founder Joshua Clarke, through Joshua Clarke & Sons (1886), and Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd (1930) which continued after Harry's death, until the closure of the firm in 1973. Margaret Clarke acted as director of the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd until her death in 1961, with the assistance of successive managers Charles Simmonds, Richard King and William Dowling, and her sisters-in-law Dolly and Lally Clarke who ran the clerical side of the business. A retrospective of Harry Clarke's work was held in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin in 1979. |
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Scope And Content
| This collection contains extensive administrative records for the Clarke Stained Glass Studios . The archive includes letterbooks, accounts ledgers, estimates, stained glass order books, invoices, costings, employee records, correspondence with clients, measurements for windows, visitors' books, presscuttings and Studio adverts. Windows were commissioned in Ireland, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Digitised material in this collection may be browsed in the Library's Digital Collections repository using this link: https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/collections/d504rk32w?locale=en |
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Image
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Document
| T.C.D.MSS5970-6167.pdf |
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Access Conditions
| Please contact mscripts@tcd.ie |
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Copyright
| Please contact mscripts@tcd.ie |
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Mgt Group
| Business records |
| Art, music & architecture |
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Language
| English |
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Related Material
| See also Clarke Studios design papers, IE TCD MS 11182.
See also Clarke Studios, Dublin business papers addenda: IE TCD MS 11142 (uncatalogued) and IE TCD MS 11176 (unavailable until 2012).
See also Harry Clarke studios papers and objects: IE TCD MS 11254.
See also Harry Clarke and Margaret Clarke letters in the Thomas Bodkin papers: IE TCD MS 6941/102-226.
See also Harry Clarke material held by the National Library of Ireland ( IE NLI MS 39,292) and Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
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Public Note
| Harry Clarke: a monograph published to coincide with the exhibition 'Harry Clarke', 12 November to 8 December 1979, at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, compiled by Nicola Gordon Bowe (Douglas Hyde Gallery, 1979).
Nicola Gordon Bowe, The life and work of Harry Clarke (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994).
Strange genius: the stained glass of Harry Clarke, by Lucy Costigan and Michael Cullen (History Press Ireland, 2010). |