Auguste Herbin

Galerie de l'Effort Moderne (Léonce Rosenberg), Paris
Ion Nicolas Streep, New York
Private Collection, Netherlands
Acquired by the present owner in 2012

Léonce Rosenberg, Bulletin de l'Effort Moderne, no. 10, December 1924
Geneviève Claisse, Herbin, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, 1993, Lausanne, no. 510, illustrated pp. 104 & 369 (with incorrect dimensions)

The canvas is not lined. There is a layer of varnish preventing the UV light from fully penetrating. However, there do not appear to be any traces of retouching visible under UV light. There is evidence of a horizontal stretcher bar mark across the centre of the work, which has resulted in some thin lines of craquelure. There are a few lines of paint shrinkage and craquelure in places, all of which are visible in the printed catalogue. There is an approximately 5cm-long fine line of craquelure, noticeable on the central figure's white gilet. Otherwise, this work is in overall very good condition. Colours: overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the white pigment is brighter in the original.
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Herbin embraced a broad range of very different styles and subjects throughout his artistic life, and the present work is one of the most significant and impressive examples of the naturalistic segment of his œuvre. Painted in 1923, it demonstrates Herbin’s interpretation of the ‘rappel à l’ordre’, a return to order that came in the wake of the Great War, and which was associated with a revival of classicism and realistic painting. Picasso was probably the most famous proponent of this new style, though this return to figuration was widespread amongst many avant-garde artists during this period. This general move away from more experimental styles and approaches has been considered a response to the grotesque violence and instability of the First World War, after which time figurative styles were judged to more legible, stable and reassuring.

Les Joueurs de Boules no. 1  is one of two oil paintings from 1923 in which Herbin depicts a fashionable crew of moustachioed men playing boules, an ubiquitous pastime amongst veterans in the years after the war. The pendant work (upright in format) is in the permanent collection of the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris, though the present work is the larger and undeniably more ambitious example of the two. The painting demonstrates Herbin’s aptitude for defining volumetric space whilst also recording the popular leisure activity and fashionable menswear of the early 1920s. Indeed the game of boules was a haven for men who sought respite from the psychological torment inflicted by the war and the work is a charming tribute to the comfort of male friendship. His very deliberate decision to depict unremarkable men undertaking an ordinarily unremarkable everyday activity on such a majestic scale is in accordance with his political convictions of the time. In 1920, Herbin signed up as an active member of the Communist party and his portrayal of these simple, provincial men on this grand history painting-style scale is testament to the artist’s respect for the everyman. Christian Derouet has described the men of these boules paintings as ‘hard-working, sincere and authentic’ and the work is indeed imbued with a solemn sense of respect for its subjects.

Not only in its focus on working men as subject, but also in its stylised depiction of the figures and uniformly applied block colour, one cannot help but compare the present work to Fernand Leger’s famous series of construction worker paintings. The sincerity and authenticity of the subject stands in stark contrast to the highly stage-managed, almost contrived nature of Herbin’s composition. It is no accident that the group is perfectly positioned under the natural framing device of the tree branches to reveal the church neatly in the background, and the at first casual-seeming arrangement of the figures and scattering of balls on the floor is anything but casual. All the elements are carefully arranged to heighten the theatricality of the scene. This theatrical ambience is only heightened by the intense focus that the players place on the man whose turn it is to throw. All eyes are on his move, immortalised forever in the painting. This is a game being treated with utmost gravity and an almost military precision. The viewer is invited to stand together with the other players to share in the drama of this delightfully sun-drenched and time-suspended moment.