HERBIN, AUGUSTE
* 29.04.1882 Quiévy, † 31.01.1960 Paris
Auguste Herbin was born on 29 April 1882 to a family of craftsmen in Quiévy. From 1899, he studied under Pharaon de Winter at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lille and painted his first Impressionist works. He moved to Paris in 1901, visited influential exhibitions by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat and gradually turned his attention to Fauvism. His paintings were soon admitted to the Paris Salons. In 1909, Herbin moved to the legendary ‘Le Bateau-Lavoir’ in Montmartre, where he made the acquaintance of his neighbours Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Otto Freundlich. Encouraged by his fellow artists, Herbin began to study Cubism intensively and developed a geometric formal language. From 1917, he created his first abstract paintings, which anticipated elements of Art Deco. Between 1921 and 1926, Herbin interrupted his first abstract phase in favour of figurative painting. No sooner had figurative art been recognised and popularised by the art world than Herbin abandoned figurative representation definitively and returned to geometric abstraction. From then on and until his death, Herbin painted spirals, compositions and ‘synchromies’ in bright, pure colours, reducing them to basic geometric forms in a constant process of evolution. He created circles, triangles, rectangles and crescent-shaped forms and depicted them in ever new variations.
In 1931, Herbin founded the ‘Abstraction-Création’ movement with Vantongerloo and other modernist artists. After the Second World War, he founded the ‘Salon des Réalités Nouvelles’, which he presided over from 1955. From 1940, Herbin developed his compositional system, the ‘alphabet plastique’, based on Goethe's theory of colour and Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. Herbin was convinced that there were secret relationships between letters, musical sounds, colours and shapes and that words and sounds could therefore be expressed in colours and shapes. Accordingly, he assigned a colour, a sound and a geometric shape to each letter. This enabled him to encode his abstract works and give them an individual and artistic signature. In 1949, his colour theory was published in ‘L'art non-figurativ non-objectiv’. Herbin's painting gained wide recognition for many years. He participated in the Kassel Documenta three times. In 1953, Herbin became paralysed on one side and had to continue painting with his left hand. His last work ‘Fin’ was unfinished due to his sudden death. Auguste Herbin died in Paris on 31 January 1960. As a pioneer of French abstraction, Herbin excelled in his use of colour and form.
Works by this artist from our auctions
Following are some examples of works by this artist from our past and future auctions.We are always accepting consignments for our auctions. Share in our success – contact us today for a no-obligations auction estimate.
office@kollerauktionen.ch
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 120 000 / 160 000 | (€ 123 710 / 164 950)
Sold for CHF 156 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 60 000 / 90 000 | (€ 61 860 / 92 780)
Sold for CHF 140 600 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 100 000 / 150 000 | (€ 103 090 / 154 640)
Sold for CHF 132 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 12 000 / 18 000 | (€ 12 370 / 18 560)
Sold for CHF 60 500 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 30 000 / 50 000 | (€ 30 930 / 51 550)
Sold for CHF 49 100 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 30 000 / 50 000 | (€ 30 930 / 51 550)
Sold for CHF 34 460 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 20 000 / 30 000 | (€ 20 620 / 30 930)
Sold for CHF 30 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 15 000 / 20 000 | (€ 15 460 / 20 620)
Sold for CHF 24 700 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 15 000 / 25 000 | (€ 15 460 / 25 770)
Sold for CHF 24 000 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 15 000 / 20 000 | (€ 15 460 / 20 620)
Sold for CHF 21 420 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 15 000 / 22 000 | (€ 15 460 / 22 680)
Sold for CHF 11 900 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 15 000 / 22 000 | (€ 15 460 / 22 680)
Sold for CHF 11 900 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query
AUGUSTE HERBIN
CHF 8 000 / 12 000 | (€ 8 250 / 12 370)
Sold for CHF 9 750 (including buyer’s premium)
All information is subject to change.
Details My catalogue Query