Georges Clairin

The recorded working language is French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Works named in the authority record are The Fire in the Tuileries and Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt. Work by Georges Clairin is recorded in the collections of Finnish National Gallery, Maison de Victor Hugo, Musée d'art et d'histoire de Saint-Brieuc, Dahesh Museum of Art and Musée Carnavalet. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour.

Clairin was born in Paris. He apprenticed in the workshops of Isidore Pils and François-Édouard Picot. In 1861 he entered the École des beaux-arts de Paris, and in 1866 first displayed his work. He travelled to Spain with Henri Regnault and to Italy with François Flameng and Jean-Léon Gérôme. He met the Catalan painter Marià Fortuny in Morocco and they visited Tétouan together. In 1895, he travelled to Egypt with the composer Camille Saint-Saëns. He is best known for his portraits of Sarah Bernhardt, with whom he had a long friendship and whom he depicted in costume for a number of her roles, including as the queen in Ruy Blas (1879), Mélisande in La Princesse Lointaine (1895 and 1899), Cleopatra (1900), Theodora (1902) and Saint Teresa of Ávila; he also showed her in less formal poses. Clairin painted many ceilings, among them the foyers of the Opéra Garnier (1874) and the Le Trident, the theatre of Cherbourg. He died in 1919 in Pouldu, Clohars-Carnoët. He was the uncle of the painter Pierre-Eugène Clairin.

Clairin's 1876 portrait of Sarah Bernhardt drew praise. Théodore Véron said of it: The portrait of Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt is assuredly one of the most prominent of the Salon, as much for the originality of its composition as for the splendour of its colour. Monsieur Clarin shows us her wrapped in a long robe of white satin with a trailing train, she is resting on a luxurious divan of pink satin and leaning on a cushion of the same material draped in gold; to her right and in the depths of this Oriental apartment is a Venetian mirror surrounded by purple velvet curtains; to her left a tropical plant lowers its green leaves over the meditating actress and sculptress; at here feet a yellow hound of a large breed rests on its long legs and stretches out its proud and aristocratic head. Emile Zola found that: "Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt isn't pretty but she has fine intelligent features and Clairin has been able to give her a smooth little face and vulgar sensuality like Cabanel would paint."

In the 2024 French biopic Sarah Bernhardt, la Divine, Clairin was played by Clément Hervieu-Léger of the Comédie Française.