George Herms Dies at 90 - Art from Rusty Junk and Decaying Objects

Aug 28, 2026

George Herms, one of the last Beat Generation artists, died at age 90 in Irvine, California. Celebrated for California assemblage, he transformed rusty junk and decaying objects into lyrical artworks that embraced the mess of everyday life. His work reflected Beat anti-materialist roots, ranged from literary constructions using discarded books to bold public installations like “Moon Dial,” often provoking controversy and debate. His partner Sue Henger confirmed the death.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

George Herms’ death and legacy

California assemblage and Beat culture roots

Major works and public controversies

Life background and artistic approach

Finkel, Jori.“George Herms Dies at 90; Turned Castoff Objects Into Art,” The New York Times, 6 May 2026. George Herms, one of the last Beat Generation artists, who rejected the trappings of post-World War II American consumer society by making lyrical, if not exactly beautiful, artwork from rusty junk and decaying objects, died on April 24 at his home in Irvine, Calif. He was 90. His partner of 17 years, Sue Henger, confirmed the death. Mr. Herms is widely celebrated, alongside the artists Edward Kienholz, Bruce Conner and Wallace Berman, as an early practitioner of California assemblage–an art form that embraced the messiness of everyday life by incorporating junkyard finds, broken car parts and other castoff materials. “George could make such elegance of mess,”Neville Wakefield, a curator who paired him with artists half his age for a 2011 show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, said inan interview.“This idea that you could make something of nothing was really resonant for a lot of younger artists, self-appointed rebels who were looking to use failure in compelling ways.” California assemblage had its roots in the enlightenment-seeking, anti-materialist ethos of Beat culture, exemplified by writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Mr. Herms, who came of age creatively in San Francisco in the late 1950s, was swept up in the bohemian fervor, going to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore to meet the poets and to jazz clubs to hear musicians like Miles Davis. While Mr. Kienholz’s work skewed darkly political, Mr. Herms leaned toward the literary. He wrote poetry and used books as raw material for some of his early artwork. For his 1960 piece“The Librarian,” he rescued a mess of bloated, disintegrating books from the local dump and placed them in the extended arms of an abstract wood figure. A related piece,“The Poet,”was featured in the seminal 1961 exhibition “The Art of Assemblage”at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, alongside work by East Coast counterparts like Lee Bontecou and Robert Rauschenberg. Some of Mr. Herms’s later assemblages were eulogies of a sort for friends.“Donuts for Duncan,”his 1989 ode to the poet Robert Duncan, incorporated the ringed (and rusted) forms of aspringform baking pan and a circular saw blade. His 1986 homage to Mr. Berman,“The Berman Peace,” used a weathered wood desk, resting on its side, to display worn leather shoes and other mementos imbued with personal history. Starting around 1960, Mr. Herms stamped almost of all his artwork with the letters L-O-V-E. For decades, he also hand-printed poems, small books, invitations and other ephemera on an old printing press he called the Love Press. His work could sometimes incite hostility. In 1962, the American Legion picketed the Pasadena Art Museum for showing one of his constructions built around a crumpled American flag. After someone broke into the museum at night and tore off the flag, Mr. Herms left the shell of the artwork on display, inserting a note that read, “Despite this degradation, the forces of creation will go on.” Tensions rose again in 1988, when he was commissioned to install a large public artwork called“Moon Dial” in Beverly Hills, Calif. Inspired by astrolabes and other ancient astronomical devices, the work featured four massive, rusted buoys encircling a set of window frames positioned to track the movement of the moon. Hundreds of local residents petitioned for its removal. Mr. Herms, undeterred, spoke to detractors and solicited letters of support. After the work’s 18-month run was up, he unsuccessfully offered it as a gift to the city. “Every generation has to kick open the doors of repression, but they’re like saloon doors–they swing closed again,” he said in a panel discussion about the controversy in 1989. George Herbert Herms was born on July 5, 1935, in Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento, one of three children of Irene Lucille (Rieder) Herms and William Herms, w

FAQs

Who confirmed George Herms’ death and where did it occur?

His partner of 17 years, Sue Henger, confirmed the death. Herms died at his home in Irvine, California.

What is California assemblage, and how did Herms practice it?

California assemblage is an art form that incorporates castoff materials like junkyard finds and broken parts. Herms made artworks from rusty junk and decaying objects, often finding elegance in disorder.

Which public artwork drew petitions for removal in Beverly Hills?

“Moon Dial” drew hundreds of local residents’ petitions for its removal. It ran for 18 months before Herms attempted, unsuccessfully, to offer it to the city as a gift.

Aug 28, 2026

Upload by Margaret