Franz Herberth wurde 1907 in Wien geboren und studierte ab 1924 an der Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule bei Franz Cizek, Erich Mallina, Anton Kenner, Rudolf Larisch und Berthold Löffler. Herberth verblieb nach Beendigung seines Studiums an der Schule, wo er ab 1930 als Lehrer in der Werkstätte für Druckverfahren tätig war. 1939 wurde er wegen seiner Ehe mit der Nichtarierin Bettina Freund in den Ruhestand zwangsversetzt, nachdem er schon im Jahr zuvor aus dem Bund Österreichischer Gebrauchsgrafik ausgeschlossen und zur Hilfsarbeit verpflichtet worden war. 1940 erhielt er endgültig Berufsverbot. Nach Beendigung des Krieges wurde Herberth zum Leiter der Werkstätte Druckverfahren an der nunmehrigen Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst bestellt und nach 20-jähriger Tätigkeit zum Hochschulprofessor ernannt. Herberth verstarb 1973 in Pulkau/Niederösterreich.
Franz Herberth was born in Vienna in 1907 and studied from 1924 at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna under Franz Cižek, Erich Mallina, Anton Kenner, Rudolf Larisch and Berthold Löffler. After completing his studies, he remained at the School, working from 1930 as a teacher in the print workshop. In 1939 he was dismissed because of his marriage to the non-Aryan Bettina Freund, after having been expelled a year earlier from the Bund Österreichischer Gebrauchsgrafik (Austrian Society of Commercial Art). In 1940 he was ultimately prohibited from working altogether. After the war, he became head of the print workshop at the University of Applied Arts, as it had become, and was made a professor after working there for twenty years. He died in Pulkau, Lower Austria, in 1973. Whereas the works of Viennese Kineticists of the 1920s in Franz Cižek’s class (according to Oswald Oberhuber “the only existing Futurism school”), such as Erika Giovanna Klien, Otto Erich Wagner, L. W. Rochowansky, Friederike Nechansky, Elisabeth Karlinsky or Marianne Ullmann, were widely published and shown in exhibitions, in the book Wiener Kinetismus—Eine bewegte Moderne, for example,Herberth is not even mentioned. This could be explained by the fact that as a student (for some of the time alongside Erika Giovanna Klien) and in subsequent years he felt more attached to German Expressionism than to abstract art. It was not until the early 1950s that he turned to abstract art, but then with a rage for experimentation unparalleled in post-war Austrian art. Herbert confined himself to coloured linocuts and, from the early 1960s, wood engravings (with a marked change in style because of the medium), but in doing so exploited all printing refinements to their limits. Unlike the artists of the Grosvenor School in London, who from the mid-1920s gave an initial (figurative) stimulus to coloured linocuts, borrowing heavily from the Italian Futurist movement, Herberth returned rather to the abstract vocabulary of Viennese Kineticism. Unlike Futurism (which had also been an inspiration for Kineticism), there is no attempt at communication of a message or agitation in Herberth’s work, highlighting even more clearly the break with Socialist Realism, which he turned his back on in the early 1950s when he renounced his membership of the Communist Party. The effect of his quiescent “kinetic” rather than “Kineticist” abstract compositions is due not only to their experimental quality but above all to the careful planning, the expert knowledge and the intelligent exploitation of the technical possibilities. “The spatial effect in Herberth’s compositions, created not just by the lines, but also particularly by the overprinting of the plate, slightly offset, with a second translucent colour, becomes a quasi-characteristic element of his work. Apart from parallel shifts, there are also sheets in which the translucent overprint is slightly rotated. His compositions become even more complex through the overprinting of a plate turned through 180 degrees. Herberth went on to mix and vary these possibilities” (Schneider 2003, p.10). Another notable feature is the systematic use of rainbow printing based on the Japanese “bokashi”, the gradation of a colour from light to dark or to another colour: “Herberth creates colour gradations not on the plate but on the roller. By rolling the ink on the stone to the desired effect it can then be taken up by the roller.” (Schneider 2003, p.11). To create different gradations on a single plate, Herberth simply divides up the plates, rolls them out separately and then recombines them for printing. These prints cannot be produced in large runs, and prints with identical colour combinations are rare. Instead, there are several colour variants of one and the same motive, also with different formats—portrait or landscape. The prints are never titled but, as with Hartung’s lithographs and woodcuts, are numbered in the form “year—motive serial number—motive variant”. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Herberth’s colour linocuts is the fact that they resemble a much more recent phenomenon. Using analogue techniques, he was able to produce the Photoshop effects created by graphic designers today. Schneider 2003: Michael Schneider, Vom Gegenstand zum Material – Zur Entwicklung der Technik des Hochdrucks im druckgrafischen Werk von Franz Herberth, in: Erika Patka (Hrsg.), Franz Herberth — Neue Dimensionen der Druckgrafik um 1950, Wien 2003) Alle Linolschnitte und Holzstiche von Franz Herberth sind auf weichem Velinpapier unterschiedlicher Formate gedruckt sowie mit dem runden Prägestempel „Nachlass / Franz Herberth / Estate“ und der handschriftlichen Werknummer versehen. Herberth signierte seine Drucke nur gelegentlich, wahrscheinlich erst beim Verkauf eines Blattes. Wenn Exemplare (oft die schönsten) nicht signiert sind, stellt dies also keineswegs eine Wertminderung dar. Mag es bei anderen Künstlern vorkommen, dass unsignierte Drucke – vor allem dann, wenn es sich um Spätdrucke in größerer Auflage nach dem Ableben des Künstlers handelt – unpersönlicher sind, trifft dies auf die Druckgrafiken von Franz Herberth nicht zu. Seine Farblinolschnitte sind praktisch immer Unikatdrucke, wobei Farbwahl, Art und Weise des Farbverlaufs, Ausrichtung und Übereinanderdruck der einzelnen Platten sowie die Entscheidung, ob Platten für eine Variante hinzugefügt oder weggelassen werden sollten, bei jedem Druckvorgang zu hundert Prozent in den Händen des Künstlers lag. Wenn also ein Druck einmal vorlag und als gut befunden wurde, empfand es Herberth offensichtlich als überflüssig, ihn durch eine zusätzliche Unterschrift zu autorisieren, da ja sowohl Herstellung der Platten als auch der Druck vom Künstler selbst vorgenommen worden waren. Der nach dem Tod des Künstlers in Übereinkunft mit den Erben angebrachte Nachlass-Stempel dient ausschließlich zur Bestätigung der korrekten Provenienz, besagt aber nicht, dass irgendeiner dieser Drucke von anderer Hand als der des Künstlers nach dessen Tod hergestellt worden wäre. Dies ist deswegen erwähnenswert, weil Nachlass-Stempel von Fall zu Fall eben auch Letzteres bedeuten können. Die nummerische Bezeichnung jedes Blattes verweist auf folgende Daten: Jahr der Entstehung – fortlaufende Nummer des Motivs – Motivvariante. In wenigen Fällen fehlt die Nummer der Motivvariante. All linocuts and wood engravings by Franz Herberth are printed on soft wove paper in various formats and bear the round embossed stamp "Nachlass / Franz Herberth / Estate" and the handwritten work number. Herberth only signed his prints occasionally, probably only when a print was sold. If copies (often the most beautiful ones) are not signed, this in no way represents a reduction in value. While it may be the case with other artists that unsigned prints are more impersonal - especially if they are late prints in larger editions after the artist's death - this does not apply to Franz Herberth's prints. His colour linocuts are practically always unique prints, whereby the choice of colour, the way in which the colour gradient is applied, the alignment and superimposition of the individual plates and the decision as to whether plates should be added or omitted for a variant were one hundred percent in the hands of the artist for each print. So once a print had been produced and found to be good, Herberth obviously felt it was superfluous to authorise it with a signature, as both the production of the plates and the printing had been carried out by the artist himself. The estate stamp affixed after the artist's death in agreement with his heirs serves solely to confirm the correct provenance, but does not indicate that any of these prints were later produced by a hand other than that of the artist. This is worth mentioning because estate stamps can also mean the latter from case to case. The numerical designation of each sheet refers to the following data: Year of creation - consecutive number of the motif - motif variant. In a few cases, the number of the motif variant is missing. Farblinolschnitt color linocut: je each 600 EUR, Holzstich wood engraving (ab from 1959-4-1) je each 400 EUR |