David Clarke: David Clarke, who died on December 16th, was the younger son and one of three children of Harry Clarke (1889-1931), the renowned stained-glass artist and illustrator, and the painter Margaret Clarke (née Crilly) (1888-1961).
He was born on August 25th, 1920, in Dublin. He attended Belvedere College, close to the Harry Clarke Studios, the stained-glass business in which he went on to play an active role. The family home was adjacent to Phoenix Park, which became for him a huge natural playground.
He studied at the National College of Art and Design and, having realised that painting, rather than stained glass, would be his primary love, he also studied privately with Mainie Jellett.
He was extremely responsive to the modernist ideas to which she introduced him, and never lost a willingness to strike out in new directions in his own painting.
Following the end of the second World War, he travelled extensively for a 10-year period, painting in England, France and Spain, where he spent about nine months and which he found particularly beneficial in terms of his art.
He also travelled to the United States as a set designer with a touring theatre group, the Dublin Players. While in the US he married Betsy Locke, in 1955, and they had three children, Rory, Étáin and Nique.
Back in Ireland, he worked in the Harry Clarke Studios while also pursuing his own painting. After the demise of the studios in 1973 he spent several years in Texas and New Mexico where, he said, he never quite felt at home.
He before returning again to Dublin, settling in Castleknock, where he remained to the end of his life. He and Betsy were divorced in 1979. Latterly he became close to Fiana Griffin, his partner for the last 12 years of his life.
His experience with stained glass clearly influenced his painting, though not in the most obvious sense. Early on, admittedly, he did use a heavy black line to delineate compositions, but his mature style is much more subtle, characterised by a pervasive, shimmering, sparkling light, and bursts of brilliant, iridescent colour. He worked in thematic series on a number of subjects, including kites, Cruinniú na mBád (the annual gathering of Galway hookers), rock pools on Inisheer and in the Wicklow Mountains, and the spectacular vistas of the Blasket Islands.
At its best his work has a free-flowing lyricism and is infused with a palpable love of nature and life. He exhibited regularly with the Taylor Galleries, and the Frederick Gallery held a compact retrospective in the year 2000.
David Clarke, painter and stained-glass designer: born August 25th, 1920; died December 16th, 2005