Jacques Herold

Jacques Hérold (1910-1987) was a Romanian artist who made his career mainly in France. In 1925, he was awarded a scholarship to the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where he was welcomed by the poets who ran the Romanian magazine UNU, which was of a surrealist spirit and collaborated with it. He then arrived in Paris in 1930, and experienced a few difficult years that required him to work in various professions before joining his compatriot, the sculptor Brancusi, as an assistant. Shortly afterwards, he became friends with Brauner, Tanguy and Breton and became part of the surrealist group in 1934. He wrote "Maltraité de peinture" in 1939 (which he published in 1957) and decided to "paint the wind", thus committing himself to a crystallographic vision of the world, where objects interpenetrate. In 1941, he participated in the creation of the "Marseille Card Game" with André Breton, Victor Brauner, Oscar Dominguez, Max Ernst, Wifredo Lam and André Masson. In addition to his painter friends, he was friends with many poets and writers and we owe him many illustrations. He also painted theater sets. At the end of the War, he settled in Lacoste in Provence, thus beginning the period in which he painted "La Liseuse d'aigle". When he returned to Paris, he participated in 1947 in the international exhibition of surrealism where he exhibited "Le Grand Transparent", one of the masterpieces of surrealism.