Brian Clarke

About

From Wikipedia:

Brian Clarke (born 2 July 1953) is a British painter, architectural artist and printmaker, known for his large-scale stained glass and mosaic projects, symbolist paintings, set designs, and collaborations with major figures in Modern and contemporary architecture.

Born to a working-class family in the north of England, and a full-time art student on scholarship by age 13, Clarke came to prominence in the late 1970s as a painter and figure of the Punk movement and designer of stained glass. By the early 1980s he had become a major figure in international contemporary art, the subject of several television documentaries and a café society regular. He is known for his architectonic art, prolific output in various media, friendships with key cultural figures,[a] and polemical lectures and interviews.

His practice in architectural and autonomous stained glass, often on a monumental scale, has led to successive innovation and invention in the development of the medium.[b] This includes the creation of stained glass without lead and the subsequent pioneering of a ‘dramatically enhanced Pointillism’ in glass, as well as the creation of sculptural stained glass works, analogous to collage, made primarily or entirely of lead. The latter two advances are described as having taken stained glass as an art form to its zero-point in each direction: absolute transparency and complete opacity.[c]

A lifelong exponent of the integration of art and architecture, his architectural collaborations include work with Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, Oscar Niemeyer, I. M. Pei, César Pelli, and Renzo Piano. He served a seven-year term as chairman of The Architecture Foundation and served on the Design Review Committee of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. His artistic collaborations have included work with David Bailey, Hugh Hudson, Malcolm McLaren, and with Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney.

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Brian Clarke’s first public collaboration with Paul McCartney was for the artwork of Paul’s 1982 album “Tug of War”. In 1989, he contributed to the artwork of the album “Flowers In The Dirt” and he created the design for the cover of the single “Figure of Eight”.

Brian Clarke also created the stage designs for The Paul McCartney World Tour in 1989/1990 and for The New World Tour in 1993.

In 1997, just before Linda’s death, Clarke had a joint exhibition with Linda McCartney. Named “Collaborations“, it showed works by both artists and collaborative pieces in which Linda’s photos were silkscreened onto mouth-blown glass using a process of their own devising. Brian delivered a message during Linda’s memorial service for Linda McCartney, on June 8, 1997.

In 2005, Clark created the covert art for the single “Fine Line”.

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Last updated on October 4, 2023