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Josef Herman, RA

In Herman’s paintings of peasants working the fields his dark, solid figures dominate the landscape. These robust square forms embody latent strength and force every bit as much as the primitive tractors and threshing machines that sometimes share their world. Herman’s labourers are the human, living machines of the industries he depicts and in them we witness a quiet dignity and stoic attitude that only they possess. He once said ‘I do not need a war to make me think of heroism. It is our endurance of the every day.’
(Josef Herman quoted in: Robert Heller, ‘Josef Herman: The Work is Life’, Momentum, London, 1998, p. 49)

Born in 1911, Josef Herman grew up in Warsaw, leaving in 1938 for Brussels, where he came under the influence of the Belgian expressionists. In 1940, he arrived in Glasgow, and four years later moved to a Welsh mining village. His studies of miners and their families developed his technique and his expressionist powers, and made him one of the most discussed artists of the 1950s. Herman went on to produce a wonderful array of paintings, drawings and prints that constitute a unique personal testament and artistic achievement. Always interested in the dignity of labour and the depths of the human spirit, Herman expressed himself in simplified shapes and vivid colours. In contrast to his prolific output of drawings, his slow, yet elaborate painting technique gave his work a richness and three-dimensional depth. He died in 2000.

Herman's range is broad: still lifes and portraits mingle with working people and the mother and child motif. Seeking the truths of human experience, while expressing his abiding passion for landscape and townscape.


Reclining lady
Mixed media
33 x 42cm framed
£1400

Two women hoeing
Oil on canvas
31 x 35 cm
First exhibited at Roland Browse and Delbanco
£5900

Two Figures
sold



Miner
sold

Man and Dog
sold

Holding hands against purple backdrop
sold



Mexican Farmer
sold

Mexican Farmstead
Oil on canvas 1967
91 x 68 cm
poa


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