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Notes
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Of his portrait for Borchard, Herbert says ‘I really did think she wanted an “early” portrait so I may have tried to make myself look younger but I was about 34 and I made an attempt to make the picture look old and battered’. For those aware only of Herbert’s later ‘religious’ paintings, the artist’s self portrait may not seem recognisably his. Yet all his work seems rooted in a mystical search for identity. Herbert appears as a young man still coming to terms with himself and the world. Though he peers straight at us, his look is hesitant and elusive. The picture’s conservative palette contains moving nuances of colour and tone. Light reflections on Herbert’s face propel us to the dazzling right backdrop. The darker facial tones relate to the dark backdrop to the left.
In 1944, he participated as an infantryman in the second wave of Normandy landings. Demobbed in 1947, he studied at Wimbledon College of Art, and at the Royal College of Art.
Herbert’s late biblically-inspired paintings possess a rare, pristine simplicity, imbued with subtle, complex allusions, that took nearly a lifetime to uncover.
The Ruth Borchard Collection
Title
Self Portrait
Date
c.1959
Medium
oil on board
Measurements
H 51 x W 42 cm
Accession number
PCF55
Acquisition method
acquired by Ruth Borchard as part of the original collection
Work type
Painting
