His collection reflects his own free movement between artistic processes and media, including drawing, painting, ceramics, tapestry and stained glass. ‘They all inform each other,’ he says. ‘The painting nourishes the work in glass.’ He recently released a book with Heni Publishing, called Vespers, of paintings of poppies produced in lockdown, set to go on show at London’s Heni Artists Agency (6-30 July), along with works inspired by them in stained glass. His next tome (working title: Inspirations: avant-garde stained glass) is due in late 2021, and will be Clarke’s take on the most radical works in the medium across the world. The artist’s constant experimentation has kept his work fresh over the decades. In his stained-glass pieces, he has sometimes eliminated lead altogether – instead fusing glass in laminated layers – while more recently he’s made artworks comprised almost entirely of lead. He’s also been pushing etching to its limits. Positioned by the large window in the former ballroom is Order and Chaos, one of 26 screens made in recent years with Heni Editions (shown in his exhibition at MAD, New York, which closed in April). Painterly impressions of blue wisteria trail down over neat red bricks, recalling the houses of Holland Park. The layers of flashed glass are etched and sand-blasted, then laminated together. ‘We’ve been able to develop a level of etching that’s not really been achievable before, although Harry Clarke came damn close to it,’ he says of the late Irish artist, whose 1921 work Bluebeard’s Last Wife he has just acquired. ‘The detail of Harry’s work is spectacular and it was all done by hand. It’s a dangerous, toxic process though, which now has to be done in a controlled environment.’
He has recently patented a new technique to take etching further still, which he is applying to more screens. ‘I’ve developed a few technologies in stained glass over the years, which quickly get into the hands of the commercial world. You see toned-down versions of them – intellectually and in terms of its craftsmanship – used in airports and offices. So we’ve patented this one, to enable me to use it to its full artistic extent before it gets used for a Chanel advert.’ The artworks in Clarke’s home are in constant rotation, and his latest acquisition isn’t visible when I visit: Opacity of London, a 2017 sculpture of a medicine cabinet, featuring a leaded, stained-glass door, by the cult 24-year-old artist and clothing designer Blondey McCoy. There’s been mutual appreciation between the duo, with McCoy using Clarke’s paintings of orchids on skateboard designs. Clarke admits McCoy’s connection to the zeitgeist is ‘useful and exciting’. Evidence of his own youthful links to it fill his downstairs living room, lined with gifts from artist friends including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Richard Hamilton. Propped up on a window ledge is an image of close friends and collaborators Paul and Linda McCartney from a series he made with Linda, incorporating black-and-white photography, silkscreened onto mouth-blown glass (see Linda’s interview in Crafts no. 153, July/Aug 1998). Clarke’s own connection to the zeitgeist helped him turn a medium associated with ancient churches into an art form of astonishing modernity. Let’s hope that, through his continual championing of stained glass, he will inspire a new generation to see its myriad possibilities.
This article first appeared in Crafts Issue 289