Clarke put the same obsessive care into this fabric commission as he did into his stained-glass masterpieces. The original is in the National Gallery of Ireland. He drew it in 1918, between Poe commissions, for a Belfast fabric company. Beauty was never a sideline for him.
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Between 1918 and 1919, while Clarke was drawing his illustrations for Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, he was simultaneously working on a commission for Sefton Fabrics in Belfast — two series of handkerchief and dress fabric designs. He liked to keep several jobs running at once. The butterfly design is one of the finest things to come from that parallel work.
The original — ink and watercolour on paper, 23.6 × 18 cm — is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. Jewel-toned butterflies rendered with the same obsessive linework he brought to stained glass and gothic illustration, but turned towards something lighter. Pattern, colour, precision. The same hand, a different register. He put the same care into fabric as he did into Poe's monsters.
About Harry Clarke (1889–1931)
Dublin-born and trained in the Arts and Crafts tradition, Clarke brought the intensity of stained-glass design into everything he touched — illustration, textile design, book covers, metalwork. He died of tuberculosis at 41. The work never went out of print.
The original is in the National Gallery of Ireland. Clarke drew this for a Belfast fabric company in 1918, while simultaneously illustrating Poe's monsters. Same hand. Different register.
Butterfly Textile Design (1918–19)
Commissioned by Sefton Fabrics in Belfast while Clarke was simultaneously drawing his Poe illustrations, this butterfly design shows a different side of the same genius — jewel-toned, decorative, obsessively precise. The original (NGI.7962) is ink and watercolour on paper, 23.6 × 18 cm, held in the National Gallery of Ireland. Clarke put the same care into fabric as he did into gothic masterpieces. This is the proof.
About Harry Clarke (1889–1931)
Dublin-born, trained in the Arts and Crafts tradition, dead at 41. Ireland's finest stained-glass artist and one of its most original illustrators. He worked on everything — and everything he touched looks like this.
