I'm in Dublin to see and review
Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. The Art of Friendship at
National Gallery of Ireland. Coming to Dublin has provided an opportunity to see other work by
Evie Hone elsewhere in the city, plus some work by the artist
Patrick Pye.
Evie Hone was an Irish painter and stained glass artist. She is considered to be an early pioneer of cubism, although her best known works are stained glass. Her most notable pieces are the
East Window in the Chapel at Eton College, which depicts the Crucifixion, and
My Four Green Fields, which is now in the Government Building in Dublin.
Patrick Pye was a sculptor, painter and stained glass artist, resident in County Dublin. Major commissions can be seen across Ireland. In 1999 a retrospective of his work was exhibited by the
Royal Hibernian Academy. He was a founding member of
Aosdána and has been described as "the most important creative artist in the sphere of religious thought in Ireland in our time".
For more on
Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone see
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here; for more on Patrick Pye see
here and
here.
Five Evie Hone stained glass windows are to be found in the Ignatian Room at
St. Francis Xavier Church having been relocated from the former student residency University Hall. Frank Rogers, author and historian says the windows are some of the best examples in Ireland of religious icons in stained glass. Hone's great gift was in illustrating a Bible story so simply and clearly that it could be understood by anyone who saw it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the five symbolical windows from University Hall, representing the Lamb the Fish, the Pelican ,the Dove and the Alpha and Omega, all symbols of the persons of the Trinity.
St. Michael Dun Laoghaire was destroyed by a disastrous fire in 1965 and
rebuilt in 1973 to a design by Pierce McKenna, with Sean Rothery and Naois O’Dowd. The great tower and spire, which survived the fire, now stands alongside the new Church, thus amalgamating the old with the new (as also at
Coventry Cathedral). Responding to changes in the liturgy dictated by Vatican II, the sanctuary of the new church was also in the centre of the church, surrounded by the congregation. The design was strikingly modern for its day. The large glass here is by the
Murphy Devitt Studios, Patrick Pye also contributed several stained glass windows, while
Yvonne Jammet carved the wooden stations
. Michael Biggs, the leading stone sculptor of the time, created sinuous and monumental granite blocks shaped as baptismal font, altar, lectern and tabernacle column (these remind one of the
Henry Moore altar at St Stephen Walbrook). The extraordinary tabernacle is the work of
Richard Enda King, who also made the crucifix.
At
St John the Baptist, Blackrock, in 1925,
Harry Clarke Studio was commissioned to create
two stained glass windows. These can be seen as the third stained glass windows on both the west and east aisles.The windows portray, on the left hand side of the nave, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St Sebastian and St Hubert, and, on the right hand side of the nave, the Crucifiction and St Francis. 1932 saw new stained glass windows installed in the Chapel dedicated to St. Anne, by Earley & Company, a Dublin-based stained glass studio.
Scenes from the Life of St Anne, is one of William E. Earley's finest stained glass commissions. In 1955, stained glass windows by Evie Hone were presented by the McGuire family in memory of Brigid Patricia McGuire. These windows depicting
Bridget, Mary and Jesus, and Patrick were among the last produced by Hone.
The Triptych of
Pentecostal Windows for the Castle oratory of
Blackrock College was commissioned from Evie Hone in 1941 by the Past Pupils Union in honour of former college President J.C. McQuaid's appointment as Archbishop of Dublin. It was at Blackrock College that Hone was received into the Catholic Church by McQuaid, when Head of College. The
College Chapel has stained glass by William Dowling, Michael Healy, Evie Hone, and Hubert McGoldrick. Hone's Chapel Foyer windows exhibit the geometric abstract style associated with modernism. She also has a lunette above an entrance to the Chapel. The College also has a window on the theme of
Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit from the Harry Clarke Studios. For more on Harry Clarke see
here and
here.
The windows in the
Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality prayer room were Evie Hone’s first independent commission, executed in 1945 and 1946. The first windows she worked on depict the Nativity and the Sacred Heart (the windows on the left and right respectively in the current arrangement) and, in 1946, the Sermon on the Mount/Beatitudes, the Last Supper and Pentecost. The windows were made for the chapel of the Jesuit College, Rahan, Tullamore, County Offaly and, when that building was sold in 1991, they were removed and installed in the purpose-built room in Manresa in 1992. The art to be seen at Manresa also includes stations of the cross by Richard Enda King and images by Hone, Mainie Jellet, Patrick Pye and
Georges Rouault.
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