MAJOR SHOW BY THE WORLD’S LEADING STAINED-GLASS ARTIST AT THE SAINSBURY CENTRE
The Sainsbury Centre will stage a spectacular exhibition across the building exploring the stained glass of Brian Clarke. Clarke is celebrated as the greatest stained-glass artist in the world today and has collaborated globally with the most radical architects of our time. Brian Clarke: The Art of Light opens on 17 June 2018 and runs until 14 October 2018.
His stained-glass screens which will debut in this exhibition are considered to represent the most significant artistic and technical breakthrough in the history of this thousand-year-old medium.
Over the last five decades, the artist has consistently pushed the boundaries of stained glass as a medium, both in terms of technology, and its poetic potential. His reputation is based on major installation projects all over the world, as well as individual works.
The centrepiece of the exhibition will be 30 stained-glass panels or screens which the artist has produced over the last three years. Clarke has been interested in the idea of the screen for many years. “I wanted to use natural light instead of synthetic light… the folding screen was an expression of
that… they are a new kind of beauty.”
Much of the technical virtuosity required to create the screens simply didn’t exist until recently. The artist tells us that “it hasn’t been until now that we have the glass technology to actually express what was in my mind. It couldn’t have been made before now. We didn’t have the capacity.”
The exhibition will also showcase some of the artist’s early leaded works.
The Exhibition Curator is Paul Greenhalgh with Assistant Curator: Katherine Mager.
Brian Clarke (b. 1953, Oldham, Lancashire, England) is the world’s most celebrated stained-glass artist, with a practice that extends to painting, sculpture, and mosaics. Since the early 1970s, he has collaborated with many of the world’s most prominent architects, including Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, and Zaha Hadid, to create large-scale glass installations for buildings worldwide. Clarke’s stained-glass works and paintings have been the subject of exhibitions at international museums including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands; Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Munich Stadtmuseum, Germany; the Centre International de Vitrail, Chartres, France; the Corning Museum of Glass, USA; The Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstaat, Germany; the Vitro Musée, Romont, Switzerland. He lives and works in London.
About the Sainsbury Centre
The Sainsbury Centre was established when Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury generously gave their art collection to the University of East Anglia in 1973. The building was designed by Norman Foster and opened in 1978.
For over 40 years, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury collected works of art which ranged across time and place. They sought work both from major European artists, as well as art and antiquities from different periods and cultures around the world. The Sainsburys were equally radical in commissioning the young Norman Foster in 1974 as the architect for the new building to house their works. Robert Sainsbury saw Foster’s innovative building as the great jewel of the Sainsbury Collection.
The Sainsbury Centre is one of the most prominent university art galleries in Britain, and a major national centre for the study and presentation of art. As well as housing the Sainsburys’ art collection, one of the few intact modernist collections of the 20th century with many seminal works by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Francis Bacon, Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, and Amedeo Modigliani, it also displays the Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau and the University’s Abstract and Constructivist Collection. Alongside these permanent collections, it hosts a range of temporary exhibitions in the new galleries, which provide the largest climate-controlled exhibition
space in Eastern England.
Supported and organised in association with HENI
Headquartered in Soho, London, HENI is an international arts services business working with leading artists and estates across publishing, print-making, digital, film and art research. HENI offers art services including printing and reproduction, digital management, events, mounting, logistics and fine art photography. The business also publishes art books in collaboration with world-leading writers and artists. HENI recently launched HENI Talks, the first website of its kind dedicated to bringing conversation about visual culture to a digitally cultivated audience.
Image Credits:
World without End and Seville, Brian Clarke: The Art of Light at theSainsbury Centre, supported andorganised in association with HENI.Photo ©Matthias Kirchberger
Manhattan and Daffodils, Brian Clarke:The Art of Light at theSainsbury Centre, supported andorganised in association with HENI.Photo©Gery Amodio
afternyneblog.wordpress.com 