De Herrera, Gloria, 1929-1985

Biographical/Historical Note

Gloria Claire de Herrera was born in Los Angeles on April 26, 1929, of Mexican and German descent. In 1947, while still in high school, she befriended Barbara C. Byrnes, owner of the American Contemporary Gallery on Hollywood Boulevard, and her husband James B. Byrnes. In 1949 James Byrnes, at that time a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, offered De Herrera a position as project secretary for the California Centennial Exhibition; she also acted as slide-pusher for Byrnes's course on twentieth-century art at USC, and learned art conservation at the LACMA conservation laboratory. During these years De Herrera also became friendly with Man Ray and his wife Juliet (née Browner), as well as artist and collector William Nelson Copley. Through Copley and Man Ray she received entrée to a circle of artists connected to the Surrealist movement, including Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Roberto Matta-Echauren, Yves Tanguy, and Marcel Duchamp.

In March of 1951, in response to the rise of McCarthyism in the United States, Man Ray, his wife, and Copley departed for Paris, bringing De Herrera with them. This move proved a pivotal event in her life, as she was never to return to the United States. In France, De Herrera and Copley found themselves at the heart of the art world, socializing with the Man Rays, Nelly van Doesburg, writers Valentine and Roland Penrose, poet Paul Eluard, and artists Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti and Tristan Tzara, among many others. De Herrera also became involved in buying and selling art, and traveled with Copley throughout France, visiting the country homes of Max Ernst, André Breton, Henri-Pierre Roché, Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot.

By 1953 or 1954 the relationship with Copley had ended, and De Herrera had found employment at Lucien Lefebvre-Foinet, a notable Parisian art-supplies store then owned by Maurice Lefebvre-Foinet, whose brother René she had known in Los Angeles. Here she became an art conservator. After implementing a series of successful repairs on damaged paintings by Mondrian and Chagall, De Herrera was recommended for the task of applying permanent glue to Henri Matisse's cut-out collages (also known as découpages or gouaches découpées). Between 1953 and ca. 1959, De Herrera worked on at least sixteen collages, and likely many more; the work was coordinated through Matisse's Russian-born assistant and model Lydia Delectorskaya, who became De Herrera's friend as well. De Herrera also undertook a commission for Marcel Duchamp in 1957. She maintained friendships in this period with Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, Victor Brauner, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Fernand Léger, Wolfgang Paalen and Bernard Pfriem.

In the late 1950s De Herrera became increasingly interested in leftist politics. She travelled to the Soviet Union in 1957, and as France became engaged with the struggle for Algerian independence, she espoused the Algerian cause. She also befriended the world-travelling photographer Dominique Darbois, and did layout for Darbois's Enfants du monde children's book series. In 1960 De Herrera was arrested and jailed for two months by French police conducting a sweep of Europeans who had provided assistance to the FLN (Front de libération nationale: the Algerian revolutionary army). Media attention focused on the involvement of De Herrera, an American citizen, in the trials of the "porteurs de valises" (suitcase-carriers, or French supporters of the Algerian independence movement). She was given a separate, secret military trial, and was ultimately expelled from France. De Herrera took up residence in Brussels, Belgium, as did many of her exiled cohorts. Successive amnesties declared in March 1962 and July 1968 restored her residency in France, and brought about the return of impounded possessions, including her automobile.

Returning to France, De Herrera found herself shunned by most of her past art-world friends. Her intimates in this period included Darbois and the photographer/master forger Adolfo Kaminsky, both of whom had been active in the French Resistance during WWII. In 1973 she left Paris for the Dordogne region, where she purchased a home near Lascaux, whose prehistoric paintings she reportedly helped document. There she became friendly with American artist Patricia Barton, also living in the Dordogne.

By 1983 De Herrera had developed terminal throat cancer. At this time James and Barbara Byrnes, who had been hoping to interview her about her Matisse collage work, finally located her through Darbois. They became her helpmates through her final two years of life, assisting her in raising money for medical treatment, in selling her house and transporting her belongings to the United States, and in re-establishing contact with her family, from whom she had been long estranged. Gloria de Herrera died on June 24, 1985, in Brive (Corrèze).

Gloria de Herrera was an American art preparator, restorer and collector active in the art worlds of Los Angeles and France. Born in 1929 in Los Angeles, she moved to Paris in 1951. A close friend of Man Ray, William Nelson Copley and other notable artists, De Herrera is credited with having glued and made permanent the cut-out collages of Henri Matisse. In 1960 De Herrera became involved in the struggle for Algerian independence and was briefly jailed. In 1973 she left Paris for the Dordogne region, settling near Lascaux. She died in Brive, France in 1985.