Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Hébert Instagram

Jean-Pierre Hébert

Jean-Pierre Hébert (1939–2021) was a French-born algorist — the man who, with Roman Verostko, gave the Algorists their name in 1995 after a SIGGRAPH panel. Born in Calais and raised in Vence, he wrote his first FORTRAN in 1959 on an IBM 704, spent a career in computer science, began making algorithmic art in 1974 on an HP 9830, and bought his first plotter in 1977. An IBM brochure introduced him to Anni Albers, an early inspiration — the V&A holds his Anni Albers Inspiration (1977–79) among twenty-two of his works. I heard that he ran his plotter at home and the pen-up/pen-down clatter kept his kids awake — so he designed artworks as one continuous line, able to run all night without waking the family. That is exactly the material care his reputation rests on: computed drawings executed exquisitely in ink, pencil, etching, sand, water, and sound — he built devices that drew in sand years before anyone marketed one. From 2003 he was artist in residence at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, invited by its Nobel-laureate director David Gross, and organized Algorist group shows there. Pollock-Krasner (2006) and Bermant (2008) awards, the ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award (2012), and election to the SIGGRAPH Academy (2018) followed; the Whitney, LACMA, Getty, Block Museum, and Thoma Foundation hold his work. He died in Santa Barbara on March 28, 2021, survived by his wife Claire and four children; jeanpierrehebert.com is the estate's mirror of his meticulous records.

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6 physical works