Auguste Herbin (29 April 1882 – 31 January 1960) was a French

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

. He is best known for his

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

and abstract paintings consisting of colorful

geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

figures. He co-founded the groups

Abstraction-Création Abstraction-Création was a loose association of artists formed in Paris in 1931 to counteract the influence of the Surrealist group led by André Breton. Founders Theo van Doesburg, Auguste Herbin, Jean Hélion and Georges Vantongerloo start ...

and

Salon des Réalités Nouvelles The Salon des Réalités Nouvelles is an association of artists and an art exhibition in Paris, focusing on abstract art. A first exhibition with the name was held in 1939 in Galerie Charpentier, organised by Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Nelly ...

which promoted non-figurative

abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 1 ...

Early life

Herbin was born in Quiévy,

Nord Nord, a word meaning "north" in several European languages, may refer to: Acronyms * National Organization for Rare Disorders, an American nonprofit organization * New Orleans Recreation Department, New Orleans, Louisiana, US Film and televisi ...

. His father was a craftsman. Herbin studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lille, from 1899 to 1901, when he settled in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

Career

The initial influence of

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...

and

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ...

visible in

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

s that he sent to the

Salon des Indépendants Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (Pa ...

in 1906 gradually gave way to an involvement with

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

, and he exhibited at the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...

in 1907. He started to experiment with

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

after his move in 1909 to the Bateau-Lavoir studios, where he met

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he play ...

, Otto Freundlich and

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

; he was also encouraged by his friendship with the art collector and critic Wilhelm Uhde. His work was exhibited in the same room as that of

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

and

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...

in the

of 1910. In 1914, at the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, he was exempted from military service because of his short stature and was committed to work in an airplane factory near Paris.Panel on Herbin's live, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich After producing his first abstract paintings in 1917, Herbin came to the attention of

Léonce Rosenberg Léonce Rosenberg (12 September 1879 in Paris – 31 July 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was an art collector, writer, publisher, and one of the most influential French art dealers of the 20th century. His greatest impact was as a supporter and promote ...

who, after World War I, made him part of the group centred on his '' Galerie de l'Effort Moderne'' and exhibited his work there on several occasions in March 1918 and 1921. Herbin's radical reliefs of simple geometric forms in painted wood, such as ''Colored Wood Relief'' (1921; Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne), challenged not only the status of the

easel painting An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, easels are traditionally used by painters to support a painting while they work on it, normally ...

but also traditional figure–ground relationships. The incomprehension that greeted these reliefs and related furniture designs, even from those critics most favorably disposed towards

, was such that until 1926 or 1927 he followed Rosenberg's advice to return to a representational style and produced paintings in the New Objectivity style. Herbin himself later disowned his landscapes, still lifes and genre scenes of this period, such as ''Bowls Players'' (1923; Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne), in which the objects were depicted as schematized volumes. Under the influence of

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, he became increasingly critical of the rational forms employed by De Stijl. After 1927, Herbin becomes interested by

microphotograph Microphotographs are photographs shrunk to microscopic scale.

s of crystals and plants and completely abandons figurative painting. In the 1930s, he co-founded the group

in Paris and served as publisher and author for the journal ''

. Art non figurativ''. In the second issue of the journal he wrote against the rising

Fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and t ...

and oppression of all kinds. As a member of the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires he signed a statement against the political indifference of artists. Critical of

Stalinism Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the the ...

, he left the Communist party in the 1940s. Beginning in 1942, Herbin developed a language of form and color, his "alphabet plastique". Increasingly, his paintings consist only of colorful arrangements of triangles, circles and rectangles. In 1946 he was one of the founders of the

, a successor of Abstraction-Création. He later served as the group's vice-president.

Late life and death

After 1953, Herbin was paralyzed on the right side, forcing him to paint with the left hand. He died in Paris on 31 January 1960. One painting remained unfinished—the motif of the painting was constructed on the word ''Fin''. During the 2000s, an important series of original Herbin's signed rugs have been realised by Didier Marien from the Boccara Gallery with the agreement of the rights holders.La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot concerning the Herbin's artistic rugs realised by the Boccara Gallery
/ref> Those rugs exhibited in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, but also in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

played a key role in the worldwide rediscovery of Herbin's artistic creations.

Public collections

Among the public collections holding works by Auguste Herbin are: *

Museum de Fundatie Museum de Fundatie () is a museum for the visual arts in Zwolle, Netherlands. Museum de Fundatie forms part of the Hannema-de Stuers Foundation, to which Kasteel het Nijenhuis in Heino also belongs. Museum de Fundatie possesses a collection of v ...

, Zwolle, The Netherlands * Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands *

National Galleries of Scotland National Galleries of Scotland ( gd, Gailearaidhean Nàiseanta na h-Alba) is the executive non-departmental public body that controls the three national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries, forming one of the National Collections ...

* Matisse Museum, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France *

KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art is located in Aalborg, Denmark, on Kong Christians Allé near its junction with Vesterbro. Of a modern Scandinavian design, it was built between 1968 and 1972 by Finnish architects Elissa and Alvar Aalto and Danish ...

, Denmark * Museum of Modern Art, Ceret, France

References

External links

Culture.gouv.fr, Base Mémoire, La Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées

Artistic rugs of Auguste Herbin with the Boccara Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herbin, Auguste 1882 births 1960 deaths People from Nord (French department) Abstract painters 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters Modern painters Cubist artists Painters of the Return to Order People of Montmartre French abstract artists