PRIEST

Brief description: Priest (1949), a glass and mosaic panel in plaster by Geoffrey Clarke.

A panel depicting a demi-figure facing forwards consisting of mosaic of coloured glass fragments set in a plaster matrix, painted grey with a painted backing sheet of white glass, all within a recessed wooden frame. Priest (1949) demonstrates how Clarke combined stained glass, mosaic and sculptural techniques to produce unique artworks. Clarke referred to such artworks, created by building up layers of plaster and pieces of glass, as ‘relief sculpture’. Like Saint Anthony, Priest was exhibited together at the RCA Exhibition of 1950, where it was described by Lawrence Lee, as 'a form of glass mosaic with many decorative possibilities […] being small, deeply coloured pieces of glass set in a fretted pattern of plaster.' This ‘relief sculpture’, mosaic or stucco panel was also shown at Clarke’s first solo exhibition at the London gallery Gimpel Fils in 1952, together with a number of his glass mosaics, monotypes, etchings, and sculptures in iron.

Object type: stained glass panel

Number of objects: 1

Production date: 1949

Production period: 20th century, mid

Designer: Geoffrey Clarke (1925 - 2014)

Dimensions: Height: 690 mm, Width: 515 mm

Acquisition: purchase 27.1.2014

Acquisition source: Clarke, Geoffrey

Accession number: ELYGM:2014.3