Auguste Herbin
In the organizer's words:
The French painter Auguste Herbin (1882-1960) is considered a revolutionary of modernism and one of the founders of abstraction in France. Shortly after the turn of the century, he began to paint late Impressionist landscapes, still lifes and portraits, already in bright, yet harmoniously handled colors, which became wild in the subsequent Fauvist phase and remained so for the rest of his life.
In 1904, he met the German art critic and gallery owner Wilhelm Uhde, who also introduced him to Germany - with far-reaching consequences: Herbin is still exhibited and collected in Germany today. In 1909, he painted his first Cubist pictures, making him one of the inventors of this pictorial language. His Cubism is also strongly colored. In 1909, he moved into a studio in the famous Bateau-Lavoir on Montmartre in Paris, in the immediate vicinity of Picasso and van Dongen.
Herbin painted in various parts of France, from the Belgian border to Spain, as well as in Bruges, Belgium, in the port of Hamburg and on Corsica. Each change of location brings with it the perception of new forms and often triggers changes in his pictorial language. It was not until the 1930s, when he finally shifted his focus to abstract art, that he stayed in Paris.
During the First World War, he designed camouflage patterns for airplanes, after which he developed a completely abstract, geometric vocabulary of forms for decorative wooden objects for the first time. As a socially committed artist and temporary member of the French Communist Party, he saw this as monumental "art for all". When he subsequently turned to figurative, magical-realist painting, this was not a break, but a metamorphosis. As always in his variable oeuvre, it is a fruitful molding of the old in the new. When he returned to abstract painting a few years later, he did so initially with round forms, volutes and spirals.
As an organizer of exhibitions and associations, he propagated the importance of abstract art, for example as president of the Abstraction-Création group from 1931. In the late 1930s, he became increasingly interested in color theories, especially anthroposophical adaptations of Goethe's theory of color. From this, he developed his "alphabet plastique" in 1942, a set of rules for pure color tones and geometric forms, musical notes and letters. He thus "spelled out" concepts in pictures, but always interpreted them variably with a view to their emotionally tangible quality. After 1945, Herbin became a role model for representatives of concrete and kinetic art and Op Art, and his work was shown in numerous solo exhibitions. Until his death, he was committed to renewing French abstraction.
Our exhibition covers the most important stages in Herbin's oeuvre and shows around 50 important works with extensive documentation.
This content has been machine translated.Price information:
Regular: 10 Euro Reduced: 5 Euro Annual pass regular: 20 Euro Annual pass reduced: 10 Euro
Location
You might enjoy this as well?
Events near you
Activities near you
Popular event locations
The best event recommendations for the Rausgegangen App!
