Auguste Herbin

Auguste Herbin (born Quiévy in 1882, died in Paris in 1960) is a French painter.

He studies at the School of the Art schools of Lille of 1898 to 1901 in the workshop of Pharaon de Winter then settles with Paris.

He paints initially in the style Impressioniste: the influence of impressionism and the post-impressionism is visible in the fabrics which it sends to the Independent Salon in 1906. It approaches the Cubisme gradually after having met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris in 1909 with the Bateau-Lavoir; he is also encouraged in this way by his friendship with the art critic and German collector Wilhelm Uhde. To the Living room of Independent of 1910 it is exposed in the same room as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes and Fernand Leger, and in 1912 it takes part in the important exposure of the Section of Gold.

During the First World War, Herbin is affected with the decoration of a military vault to the camp of Mailly-the-Camp, and later to work of camouflage in an aircraft factory.

Herbin produces its first abstract fabrics in 1917. He is noticed by Leonce Rosenberg which buys several fabrics to him and takes it under contract with the Gallery of the Modern Effort where he exposes on several occasions between 1918 and 1921. In 1919 Herbin decides to give up the cubism, for him exceeded; he writes with Gleizes: “Art can be only monumental. ” It then carries out its series of “monumental objects”. Its geometrical paintings on wood in relief call in question the statute of the painting of rest. However they are very badly accommodated, including by criticisms favorable to the cubism. Herbin is withdrawn with the Cateau-Cambrésis. He marries in 1922 Louise Bailleux, whom he known in this small town. Between 1922 and 1925 Herbin returns, in prey with the doubt and on the councils of Rosenberg, with a figurative style. He will repudiate later the landscapes, dead natures and the scenes of kind of this time, such as the bowlers (1923, National museum of Modern art, Paris), in which he represents the objects in the form of simplified volumes.

In 1931 it exposes to the Living room Association 1940 from which the group Abstraction-Creation will leave which it founds with Georges Vantongerloo. It devotes in these years to a made entirely geometrical painting the simple shapes in flat tints of pure colors, alternating with undulating forms. In 1946 Herbin develops its “plastic Alphabet”, test of coding of the correspondences between letters, colors and forms. In 1949 it presents to the gallery Gentilhommière in Paris its book nonfigurative art, not objective where it exposes its plastic alphabet, delivers which will become one of the major references of the abstract painting of this time.

In 1953 Herbin is struck of hémiplégie. He relearns to paint left hand.

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