Harry Clarke

Harry Clarke was a leader of Ireland’s Arts and Crafts Movement that promoted art created by hand in order to mitigate the impersonal nature of objects created in the Industrial Revolution. Clarke worked in both stained glass and book illustration. Growing up in the late 19th century, Clarke was inspired by the natural and ornate style of Art Nouveau. His book illustrations were primarily fantastical as they accompanied volumes by authors like by Edgar Allan Poe and Hans Christian Andersen. The slightly-off proportions of his figures and flattened perspective in his drawings emphasize both the human-made quality of his work and the wondrous quality of the fiction it accompanies.