Brian Clarke and Linda McCartney: Collaborations

Between 1994 and 1998, Brian Clarke and Linda McCartney collaborated on three series of stained glass artworks that combine traditionally mouth-blown glass and black and white photography. These series, principally composed of autonomous pieces, began with leaded panels that they gifted to and installed in the Hammersmith Hospital Cancer Centre, London. This collaboration built on their work together on past projects, including the cover art of Paul McCartney’s albums Tug of War (1982) and Flowers in the Dirt (1989), and the New World Tour stage sets (1992-93). 'Brian Clarke and Linda McCartney: Collaborations’ constitutes their final series of works together, and was completed in 1999.

Between 1994 and 1998, Brian Clarke and Linda McCartney collaborated on three series of stained glass artworks that combine traditionally mouth-blown glass and black and white photography. These series, principally composed of autonomous pieces, began with leaded panels that they gifted to and installed in the Hammersmith Hospital Cancer Centre, London. This collaboration built on their work together on past projects, including the cover art of Paul McCartney’s albums Tug of War (1982) and Flowers in the Dirt (1989), and the New World Tour stage sets (1992-93). 'Brian Clarke and Linda McCartney: Collaborations’ constitutes their final series of works together, and was completed in 1999.

In a February 1998 article, The Independent writes:

‘Linda McCartney, working with her friend, the artist Brian Clarke, is helping to spearhead a revival of an art form that has been dormant for more than 100 years - stained-glass photography. They have been secretly working for three years on reviving the technique, which was last in vogue in the 1880s, and which Clarke has experimented with once before. They have now produced a number of stained glass photographs, including a set of portraits of Sir Paul McCartney as well as other celebrities, friends, flowers and urban landscapes. Through a new process that they have invented, Linda McCartney’s photographs are silk-screened on to mouth-blown glass. Instead of using inks, the colour comes from using ground glass mixed with iron oxide that is then fired in a kiln at 1,200C. The surface of the glass melts, the ground glass in the pigment melts and the two fuse. The pair kept the project secret for three years, says Clarke, “as we did not want what is a very difficult technique to be plagiarised before the opening of the Romont exhibition. All the techniques we that we have used are known techniques, but nobody has ever put them together like this before.” Linda McCartney said yesterday: “Having enjoyed collaborating with Brian for many years on various projects, I’m very excited about this opportunity to show our latest work. As a photographer, the possibilities of this form intrigue me.’

The pair exhibited together at the Vitromusée Romont, and at the Deutsches Glasmalerei-Museum in Linnich, after McCartney’s death in 1998.