{"id":251382,"date":"2025-07-09T18:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T18:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251382\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T18:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T18:02:18","slug":"paul-mccartney-supported-as-he-pays-tribute-to-dear-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251382\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney supported as he pays tribute to ‘dear friend’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Beatle paid tribute on InstagramDan Haygarth<\/strong><\/a> Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter and Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Entertainment Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

15:17, 09 Jul 2025<\/p>\n

\"SirSir Paul McCartney pictured in 2024(Image: Pascal Le Segretain\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Sir Paul McCartney has been supported by his fans after paying tribute to a “dear friend” who has died. The Walton-born former Beatle<\/a>, 83, paid tribute to artist Sir Brian Clarke yesterday (July 8) after his death aged 71.<\/p>\n

Oldham-born Sir Brian designed the cover for Sir Paul’s<\/a> 1982 solo album, ‘Tug Of War’, and was remembered as the \u201cmost important artist working in stained glass\u201d by London\u2019s Heni gallery as it announced his death on July 1. The artist is best known for his work at the Al Faisaliyah Centre in Riyadh, the Royal Mosque of King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia., and the 14-metre-high, stained glass pavilion, The Stamford Cone in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Alongside a photograph of him and Sir Brian, Sir Paul<\/a> said in a post on Instagram<\/a>: “Brian Clarke was a dear friend of our family whom we had known for years. Sadly, he passed away recently but we all have lovely memories of the times we had together. We always laughed.<\/p>\n

“Brian often had some great artistic endeavours to show or talk to us about. He made some stained glass windows for us and did a great collaboration with Linda using her photographs to make stained glass pictures out of.<\/p>\n

“He was commissioned to make stained glass for Bahrain Airport (Concordia), Stansted Airport (a collaboration with Sir Norman Foster), and Queen Victoria Street Arcade in Leeds, and these are just some of the works he was famous for.<\/p>\n

\"BrianBrian Clarke pictured in 2021(Image: Jonathan Brady\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

“Ever since I met him in the 70s with Robert Fraser the art dealer, we always had the best times together. We will all miss him but have fond memories of him to cherish and his incredible artwork to remind us of Brian himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the comments, one person said: “I’m sorry for your loss, Paul.” Another said: “What a wonderful tribute. Rest In Peace Brian Clarke.”<\/p>\n

George Harrison’s<\/a> widow, Olivia Harrison said: “Thank you for these words. Dear Brian, I did not know him as long as you did but we worked together and he commissioned a mosaic path of hundreds of thousands of pieces and assembled them together in the most beautiful narrative of George\u2019s life. That\u2019s what his mind was like and just the sweetest soul.”<\/p>\n

Across his 50-year-career, Sir Brian also created stained glass for commemorative works including the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue (Neue Synagogue) in Darmstadt, Germany, and also designed an artwork in 2010 for the Papal Chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature in London, for Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s state visit to the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

The artist was born in Oldham, then part of Lancashire<\/a>, into a working class family, with his father, Edward, a miner, while his mother, Lilian, worked at the local cotton mill, according to his official website.<\/p>\n

He was knighted in the 2024 New Year Honours, telling PA at the time: \u201cI\u2019m feeling very surprised and grateful really. It\u2019s wonderful to get noticed for one\u2019s work, but to get honoured for it too is really very encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement from Heni, announcing his death on Saturday, read: \u201cA visionary artist and cherished friend, he will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other celebrities to pay tribute to the artist included TV presenter and pianist Jools Holland, who said Sir Brian was an \u201cextraordinary and dear man\u201d in a post on Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Beatle paid tribute on InstagramDan Haygarth Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter and Casey Cooper-Fiske,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,11693,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-251382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-the-beatles","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114824593076502074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}