@Sothebys 9th September Auction, Irish Art including property from the Collection of Sir Michael Smurfit such as the stunning Playboy of the Western World” by Harry Clarke -
Detailed catalogue note below
The present work is a design for The Geneva Window (1929) (fig. 1), 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 early twentieth-century Irish writers. Here, Clarke takes inspiration from J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (fig. 2), the three-act play first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1907, and which caused a public outcry at the time. Clarke's window itself proved too controversial owing to the writers and images Clarke chose for it - in 1930 the Irish government rejected it for fear of causing offence and thus the window was never installed as intended.
