Pierre-Eugène CLAIRIN (1897-1980), Avenay (circa 1920-1922)

Ierre-Eugène CLAIRIN (1897-1980)
Avenay (circa 1920-1922)
Oil on canvas, signed lower right
50x61cm

Provenance:
Wildenstein & Co Gallery London. Pierre Eugène Clairin exhibition from October 23, 1973 to November 14, 1973
Private collection.

Pierre-Eugène Clairin born in Cambrai on March 14, 1897 and died in Thorigné-en-Charnie on July 7, 1980 is a painter, illustrator, engraver and French resistance fighter. Pierre-Eugène Clairin studied in England and entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studio of Fernand Cormon in 1913. He joined the cavalry, then, in 1915, the Air Force. Having become a war pilot, he was decorated with the Croix de guerre, the Médaille militaire and the Légion d'honneur. In 1919, he entered Paul Sérusier's studio at the Académie Ranson. He met Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard, who introduced him to engraving and lithography. As a child, he spent the summer in Brittany, with the family of his uncle Georges Clairin, and, at the Salon d'Automne in 1921, he presented Breton landscapes and exhibited his paintings of Pont-Aven at the Galerie Druet, where he met Pierre Farrey. In 1927, he signed a contract with the Galerie Bernheim, which exhibited his work in New York. In 1929, he won the Prix Abd-el-Tif. He stayed at the Villa Abd-el-Tif for two years, which he extended until 1934 with trips to Morocco and southern Algeria. He returned to Algeria regularly after 1945. On his return in 1934, he settled in Saint-Loup-de-Naud and, for the 1937 World's Fair, he decorated the pavilions of the Île-de-France and the Vatican State (which earned him a gold medal) as well as the National Conservatory of Music. Mobilized in 1939, then demobilized in 1940, he organized a network of resistance fighters in Saint-Loup-de-Naud. In 1946, he went on a mission and gave conferences in the United States and worked in particular for and with Albert Camus, whom he had met in 1929 in Algiers, through Edmond Charlot, at the bookstore-gallery "Les Vraies Richesses". In particular, he published a series of plates on the works of Camus (Noces, L'Exil et le Royaume, La Femme adultère) and Henry de Montherlant with Rombaldi in 1950. He received the Grand Prix de l'Île-de-France in 1957. From 1960, he painted in particular in Île-de-France and in the Pont-Aven region. He was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1967 (Section IV: Engraving) and president of the Société des Peintres-Graveurs Français in 1970. He died on his return from one of his last exhibitions in Pont-Aven, in July 1980. Paul Sérusier wrote to Clairin, whom he considered his spiritual successor: "I would like to find in you the heir to a tradition that my masters have bequeathed to me, and to which I believe I have added something, even if it is only a little order. » Pierre-Eugène Clairin was one of the last painters to have worked in Paul Gauguin's studio in Lezaven Pont-Aven.