Jean-Pierre Hébert

Jean-Pierre Hébert was born in 1939 in Calais, France, and spent much of his youth in Vence, Provence, a place rich with artistic influence. Growing up, he was surrounded by masterpieces from artists like Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall, which shaped his early sensibilities. By 1959, while still a student, he was already programming in Fortran on Europe’s first commercial computer during a summer job at IBM. In the early 1970s, Hébert started experimenting with computer art on Hewlett-Packard lab machines and plotters, making him one of the first to explore algorithmic drawing as a creative practice.

Hébert’s work is deeply rooted in drawing but refuses to be confined by traditional materials or methods. While paper remained his primary surface, he expanded his practice to include prints and drawings on film, glass, metal plates, wood, sand, as well as air and water. His approach embraces both the detailed and the minimal, the permanent and the ephemeral. He drew inspiration from a wide spectrum of historical drawings, from prehistoric cave art to Renaissance masters and modern innovators, weaving these influences into algorithmic systems of his own design. Hébert wrote his own software to turn mathematical and poetic ideas into visual forms, treating code not just as a tool but as a language of creation. His co-founding of the Algorists in 1995 was a natural extension of this commitment to marrying art with algorithmic precision, always balancing rigor with moments of chance and quiet meditation. His work stood out for its blend of algorithmic complexity and a deeply intuitive, sensory understanding of materials, a sensibility shaped by his background and lifelong engagement with both art history and science.

Hébert’s work was widely exhibited and respected, appearing in major institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki. His long-term residency at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara was emblematic of his unique position at the intersection of art, technology, and science. He was considered a key figure in the early development of what is now called generative art, opening up new frontiers of visual language with tools he built himself. Over his career, he earned significant honors including grants from the Pollock-Krasner and David Bermant Foundations and, in 2012, the ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art, acknowledgments that underline his role as a pioneer who shaped the language of digital art. Hébert passed away in 2021.