The Playboy of the Western World
Artist
Harry Clarke
(1889 - 1931)
Datec. 1928
MediumWatercolour, gouache, and pencil on paper
DimensionsSheet: 42.5 × 25 cm
ClassificationsWatercolours
Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery.
Purchased, 2020.
Object number2087
DescriptionThis is a design for The Geneva Window (1929), which Harry Clarke was commissioned to make as a gift from the Irish government for the International Labour Building of the League of Nations in Geneva. The window consists of eight panels illustrating the work of fifteen Irish writers. Here, Clarke takes inspiration from J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, the three-act play first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1907, and which caused an outcry at the time. He illustrates the characters Christy Mahon and Pegeen Mike. Clarke's window itself also proved controversial owing to the writers and images Clarke chose and in 1930 the Irish government rejected it for fear of causing offence and thus the window was never installed as intended. The window is now in the collection of the Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami, USA.On View
Not on viewCollections
