Auguste Herbin

Auguste Herbin (29 April 1882 – 31 January 1960) was a French painter of modern art. He is best known for his Cubist and abstract paintings consisting of colorful geometric figures. He co-founded the groups Abstraction-Création and Salon des Réalités Nouvelles which promoted non-figurative abstract art.

Early life

Herbin was born in

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, he was exempted from military service because of his short stature and was committed to work in an airplane factory near Paris.^[1]

After producing his first abstract paintings in 1917, Herbin came to the attention of

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, he became increasingly critical of the rational forms employed by De Stijl. After 1927, Herbin becomes interested by microphotographs of crystals and plants and completely abandons figurative painting.^[1]

In the 1930s, he co-founded the group Abstraction-Création in Paris and served as publisher and author for the journal Abstraction-Création. Art non figurativ. In the second issue of the journal he wrote against the rising Fascism and oppression of all kinds. As a member of the Communist Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires he signed a statement against the political indifference of artists. Critical of Stalinism, he left the Communist party in the 1940s.^[1]

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 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 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.^[2]

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.^[3] Those rugs exhibited in France, but also in Moscow, London and New York 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, Zwolle, The Netherlands
• Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
• National Galleries of Scotland
• Matisse Museum, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France
• KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark
• Museum of Modern Art, Ceret, France

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Auguste Herbin.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Auguste Herbin.

• 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