Jacques Halbert (1955) - Cerises sur fond bleu

Jacques Halbert (born in 1955)

Cherries on a blue background

Gouache on paper

24.5 x 33 cm

Jacques Halbert was born in 1955 in Bourgueil. He lives and works in Candes Saint Martin in the Loire Valley.

The early years
As a student at the Bourges School of Fine Arts, Jacques Halbert painted his first cherries in public space on a palisade over 40 meters long. That same year, he regularly travels to Paris to engage with the art scene. Dressed as a chef, he makes himself known at openings by selling small canvases and cherry tarts in a cherry crate he wears at his waist. This attitude helps him approach many artists (Ben Vautier, Raymond Hains, Andre Cadere, Catherine and Jacques Pineau, etc.) and he is invited to FIAC in 1976. On this occasion, Jacques Halbert creates Galerie Cerise, a tricycle cart transformed into a traveling gallery.

The American years
In 1978, Jacques Halbert went to the USA for the first time, invited to participate in the Washington fair. During this stay, he discovers New York and meets the artist Jean Dupuy, who helps him settle there. Jean Dupuy introduces him to the avant-garde art scene with Fluxus members and emerging artists such as Keith Haring. Jacques Halbert participates in numerous performances and experiences the final years of The Collective Consciousness. He exhibits with New York galleries Gracie Mansion and Emily Harvey. In 1985, following in the footsteps of Gordon Matta-Clark’s FOOD and Daniel Spoerri’s Eat Art Gallery, Jacques Halbert opens and runs The Art Café in the East Village for five years. In 1990, Jacques Halbert leaves New York to focus exclusively on his work. He spends the first years in Florida, then in Los Angeles, experiencing both coasts of America. In 1999, returning to New York, he founded Magnifik Gallery in Williamsburg while continuing his work, which is the subject of exhibitions in the USA and in Europe.

Back in France
A few months after September 11, 2001, Jacques Halbert leaves New York and settles in Candes-Saint-Martin, in Touraine. For twenty years, his work has been shown in exhibitions and retrospectives at art centers such as Le Creux de l’Enfer in Thiers, Le Centre de Création Contemporaine in Tours, La Chapelle de Genneteil in Château-Gontier, etc.—including the latest in 2020 at the Château de Montsoreau – Museum of Contemporary Art. Jacques Halbert’s works are also present in public collections such as the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, the Nantes Art Museum, Emily Harvey Foundation in New York, the Artotheques of Caen and Angers, FRAC Auvergne, …

For over 45 years, the cherry has been a recurring motif in his work, with two guiding lines: painting and performance.

In 2021, the Château de Montsoreau – Museum of Contemporary Art published “Autoportrait,” a book in which more than thirty artists, critics and art historians sketch the portrait of the artist (Daniel Dezeuze, ORLAN, Ben Vautier, Mathieu Mercier, Fabrice Hyber, Claire Chevrier, Patrick Tosani, Olivier Mosset, …).