# Brian Clarke

brian clarke (born 2 July 1953) is a British architectural artist, painter and printmaker, known for his large-scale stained glass and mosaic projects, abstract and symbolist canvases, and collaborations with major figures in Modern and contemporary architecture. Born to a working-class family in the north of England, and a full-time art student on scholarship at 13, Clarke came to prominence in the late 1970s as a painter and figure of the Punk movement and designer of ecclesiastical stained glass, and by the early 1980s had become a major figure in international contemporary art, the subject of several television documentaries and a café society regular known for his architectonic art, prolific output in various media, friendships with celebrities and key cultural figures, and polemical lectures and interviews. His practice in architectural and autonomous stained glass, often on a monumental scale, has led to successive innovation and invention in the development of the medium, including the creation of stained glass without lead and the subsequent pioneering of a 'dramatically enhanced Pointillism', and the creation of sculptural stained glass works, analogous to collage, made primarily or entirely of lead.