{{Short description|English scenic designer and painter}} {{about|the English scenic designer and painter|the English footballer|Joe Clare}} '''Joseph Clare''' (1846–1917) was an English scenic designer and painter of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. ''The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre'' stated that during his lifetime "[Clare] gained the reputation of possibly the finest set designer in America, with his settings admired for their elegance and proper sense of period."<ref name="Bordman"/>
==Life and career== Born in England in 1846, Joseph Clare apprenticed as a scenic designer at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool.<ref name="Bordman">Bordman, p. 131</ref> He then worked for five years as a resident scenic designer at the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth where he had particular success designing sets for several stage adaptations of novels by Charles Dickens.<ref name="Billboard">{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XaoiAQAAMAAJ&dq=%C2%A0%22Joseph+Clare%22+1917&pg=RA11-PA74|title=Obituaries: Joseph Clare|magazine=Billboard|date=June 16, 1917|page=74}}</ref> During his first year at that theatre in 1865, he met and befriended Dickens; maintaining a close relationship with the author until Dickens's death in 1870.<ref>{{cite news|title=Joseph Clare|work=The Sun|date=June 5, 1917|page= 7}}</ref>
In 1871 Clare was brought to the United States by the theatre impresario Lester Wallack, and was a resident scenic designer at Broadway's Wallack's Theatre until the company disbanded in 1887.<ref name="Bordman"/> In 1894 he designed the sets for the Broadway premiere of Victorien Sardou's ''Gismonda'' at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.<ref>{{cite news|title=Sardou's "Gismonda" Produced|date=November 1, 1894|work=The New York Times}}</ref>
Clare died on June 3, 1917 at the age of 71 in Central Islip, New York.<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary: Joseph Clare|work=Norwich Bulletin|date=June 5, 1917|page= 1}}</ref>
==References== ===Citations=== {{reflist}}
===Bibliography=== *{{cite book|title=The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre|first=Gerald Martin|last=Bordman|year=1987|publisher=Oxford University Press|chapter=Clare, Joseph}}
==External links== *{{IBDB name|id=407312}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Clare, Joseph}} Category:1846 births Category:1917 deaths Category:Broadway scenic designers Category:English scenic designers Category:Pre-Raphaelite painters