The Jonathan Herbert Papers
are now live in
The Smithsonian Archives of American Art
FIFTY-FOUR YEARs MAKING ART.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SHADOWS.
That just changed. Ben Gillespie, Head of Curatorial Affairs at the Archives of American Art, spent a full day in my studio on May 8th. He took papers and slides and polaroids and sketches and notes. They are in the archives, and this is the link: The Smithsonian Archives of American Art, The Jonathan Herbert Papers, circa 1960-2020.
The Archives of American Art is the world's preeminent and most widely used research center dedicated to collecting, preserving, and providing access to primary sources that document the history of the visual arts in America.
biography
JONATHAN HERBERT
Jonathan Herbert (b. 1952, NYC) is a polymathic artist with a fifty-four-year practice spanning painting, photography, creative nonfiction, and pioneering digital imaging. He trained at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, completing his Diploma in 1977 after thirteen months of independent study in Antwerp with Jan Cox, immersed in CoBrA sensibilities.
Herbert arrived in SoHo in 1976. From his studio at 498 Broome Street he tagged the midnight subways with Jean-Michel Basquiat, drove 250,000 miles as a New York City night-shift cab driver — the source of his Views from a Yellow Cab series — and exhibited with gallerists Frank Marino and Nico Smith. His underground solo show at Chase Park nightclub was noted by Cookie Mueller in her Details magazine "Art and About" column in December 1982. Herbert’s friend Robert Frank characterized his paintings as "brutal and on the edge" and invited him to Mabou.
In 1984, Herbert co-founded Herbert Wagner Digital Imaging, working on one of the first IBM PC-XTs, while continuing his painting practice. However, when he was struck sober in 1986 he discovered he could not paint uninebriated and turned his attention to digital work full time. Through three companies — Herbert Wagner Digital Imaging, Jonathan Herbert Computer Illustration, and Zero Degrees Kelvin — he pioneered methods of digital imaging and scientific visualization now so widely used that nobody remembers they had to be invented. He taught himself UNIX system administration to run his workstations and molecular biology to translate research from major laboratories into mechanism-of-action visuals. He was sponsored by Silicon Graphics, featured in twenty-eight trade and consumer publications, and flown to Karachi to speak at Pakistan's First National Advertising Convention.
Beginning in 1999, Herbert spent nine years caring for his wife through metastatic hemangiopericytoma; she died in 2008. He continued to paint throughout. As a result of his presence at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, he developed three cancers, including the lymphomas treated with R-CHOP chemotherapy through 2012 and 2013. At night during chemotherapy, he drew shapes he recognized as tumors, then as mandalas and sefirot. These drawings developed into two interconnected painting series: Etz Hayim (2013), and Tarot Arcana Viventia (2013–2014).
By 2015 his partner’s cumulative trauma from September 11 forced a departure from New York. The move to Sarasota ruptured his decades-old methodology. Unable to find skilled studio assistants for his labor-intensive oil practice, he developed proprietary acrylic-urethane paint systems incorporating pigment dispersions, ground copper, ground tires, and reflective inclusions. The resulting surfaces shift with the viewer's movement and demand active engagement.
Herbert's practice is operationally alchemical. Transformations wrought from the five elements — fire, water, earth, air, and æther (the physics of gravity and time) — are both studio process and philosophical anchor. He paints what he is given to paint.
Despite documented traumatic brain injuries from falls and neurotoxin exposure, in 2024 he completed 104 paintings. His current three bodies of work are Liminal Alchemy, INHUMANITY: War Crimes and Other Horrors, and works inspired by La Commedia di Dante Alighieri.
In June 2026, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art accessioned the Jonathan Herbert Papers. They include his historic correspondence, sketchbooks, journals, Polaroids, and photographs. Herbert's work is held in collections including The Kinsey Institute, The Paley Center for Media, Pfizer Inc., Kirkland & Ellis, and Silicon Graphics. The Museum of Modern Art Library and the New York Public Library Special Collections hold artist files.
Herbert lives and works in Sarasota, Florida.
Portrait of Jonathan Herbert by Virginia Hoffman Photography ©2016 Virginia Hoffman
CURATOR MARK ORMOND ON HERBERT
“When I ask him if he has heroes Herbert tells me that he “likes the cave painters and believes they were shamans.” He also believes in alchemy. In considering Herbert’s work you can see those connections. There is something mystical about his work that is other worldly. It is spiritual in the way it can put you in touch with your soul when you contemplate his art. It can be magical and transformative. Herbert believes that “art puts you in contact with your inner life and takes you to a greater life.” In considering his work, this is possible. Seeing reproductions of his work is a starting point. Being in the presence of the work initiates the journey of discovery. I encourage you to contemplate his work in person.” —Excerpt from an essay by Mark Ormond, Independent curator, art historian, writer, lecturer and consultant in Working Title Magazine.