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Painted in January 1915.

Signed and dated herbin janv. 1915 (lower right)

Oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Galerie Sept, Paris
Private Collection, France
EXHIBITED

Bern, Kunsthalle, Auguste Herbin, 1963, no. 15
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Herbin, 1963, no. 24
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Geneviève Claisse, Herbin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Lausanne, 1993, no. 332, illustrated p. 338
CATALOGUE NOTE

The seminal 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Paris Salon d'Automne had a major influence on a whole generation of artists. In its wake, younger artists, including Herbin, shifted directions radically and started treating nature with "the cylinder, the cone and the sphere", following Cézanne's call. At the beginning of World War I Herbin was drafted into the army and was asked to design camouflage materials for the air force (Fig. 1). Composition is one of only 12 known works painted by the artist during the first three years of the war. These works had such an impact on his contemporaries that Herbin was soon recognized as a pioneer and leader of the synthetic form of Cubism which departed from the more fractured and highly abstract analytical depiction of forms which characterized Cubism in its early years. The present work is a wonderful example of his inventive and original approach to Cubism. While in the early years of Cubism Picasso, Braque and Gris limited their palettes to black, browns, greys and off-whites, Herbin never rejected color. Here, the vibrant colors alternate with smooth surfaces, dots and thick impasto. The simple forms are a testament to Herbin's "geometrical abstraction" period which would start a few years later.

Fig. 1 Herbin in 1915, designing camouflage materials for the air force