Rating and value of lithographs and paintings by Hervé di Rosa

If you own a work by or based on the work of artist Hervé di Rosa and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers can help you.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise estimate of its current market value.

Then, if you want to sell your work, we'll point you in the right direction to get the best possible price for it.

Artist's rating and value 

An important artist of the late 20th century, Hervé di Rosa's works are highly prized by collectors. At auction, his childlike paintings are particularly popular.

On the auction market, the prices at which his works sell range from €10 to €52,000, a considerable range, but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to the artist's work.

A work by di Rosa can fetch tens of thousands of euros at auction. For example, his oil and collage on canvas Les amoureux gitans, dating from 1986, sold for €52,000 in 2023, whereas it was estimated at between €10,000 and €15,000.

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

Style and technique by Hervé di Rosa  

Hervé di Rosa's style is distinguished by a visual exuberance that blends popular culture, classical artistic references and uninhibited modernity. A major player in the figuration libre movement, his approach combines spontaneity of gesture with rigorous technical mastery.

Di Rosa draws on a plastic vocabulary borrowed as much from comics as from traditional art, integrating narrative motifs and stylized forms that captivate with their immediacy.

His vibrant, saturated palette acts as a vector of energy, while his dynamic compositions reflect a freedom of spatial organization, often devoid of visual hierarchy.

His work is also distinguished by his exploration of a variety of techniques, from painting and assemblage to ceramics and tapestry, reflecting his desire to inscribe his art in a craft-based, universal dimension.

This use of multiple media is accompanied by frequent collaboration with local craftsmen, particularly in his projects carried out in workshops around the world. In this approach, Di Rosa crosses the boundaries between art and craft, renewing technical traditions through a contemporary reinterpretation. 

His dense, abundant works create a fertile tension between raw expressiveness and almost ornamental precision. Hervé di Rosa is thus part of a tradition in which art becomes accessible, joyful and narrative, while remaining deeply rooted in a critical dialogue with the issues of his time.

The life of Hervé di Rosa

Hervé Di Rosa, born in 1959 in Sète, is a central figure in the Figuration Libre movement, which shook up the norms of contemporary art in the 1980s.

His training at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris had little to do with traditional techniques, as the artist quickly turned to a visual language in which popular imagination and urban culture took precedence over academicism.

Early on, he met Robert Combaswhose impact on his artistic vision was undeniable. Together, they shared an urgency to return to an unrestrained, figurative art form.

Di Rosa's work, joyfully colorful and deeply rooted in the visual codes of popular art, flourishes in a rich imagination where influences from comics, popular iconography and art brut intersect.

His career quickly took on an international dimension, driven by an enthusiasm for artisanal techniques. His travels took him to Tunisia, Vietnam and other countries, where he assimilated local practices such as ceramics and lacquer.

Di Rosa uses these experiences to enrich his creations, in which object and painting intertwine. In 2000, he inaugurated the Musée international des arts modestes (MIAM) in Sète, a place dedicated to popular and modest arts.

This space reflects the very essence of his work: accessible art, uniting popular culture and creativity without frontiers, as a celebration of the visual and cultural diversity of his time.

Focus on Di Rosa's Bird Dance.

It is in this work, La danse des oiseaux, that we find the essence of Hervé Di Rosa's work, marked by a confrontation between popular art and the codes of academic painting.

The choice of dance as the main theme is not insignificant: the idea here is to celebrate freedom, but also to oppose movement to the rigidity of traditional formalism.

Through a bold use of primary colors, the artist calls on the expressive power of red, blue and yellow, which invade the canvas with controlled spontaneity.

The birds, the main figures in the composition, are both symbols and archetypes: animated silhouettes that, in their exuberance, seem to free themselves from any geometric or perspectival constraints.

The irregular contours and flowing forms inscribe the work in a quest for abstraction, while retaining an obvious visual narrative.

While at first glance the touch may seem childish or naive, in reality it conceals a profound reflection on the dynamics of movement and the encounter between figuration and abstraction.

In this tension between apparent chaos and structure, Di Rosa finds a form of balance that revives the heritage of popular artists while imposing his personal vision of color and gesture. It is through this freedom that the work takes on its essence, in both its lightness and its depth.

Hervé di Rosa's imprint on his period

Hervé Di Rosa's mark on his period is undeniably marked by a bold commitment to popular art and a clear desire to shake up the conventions of contemporary art.

His work is characterized by a willingness to integrate elements from everyday visual cultures, borrowing symbols and forms from popular art, comic strips, graffiti and primitive art.

This return to popular sources deliberately opposes the academic codes of the time, when the quest for pure abstraction dominated debates.

Di Rosa, with his strong sensibility for color and line, frees himself from codes by drawing on more popular and popular registers, reintroducing artistic gestures considered marginal in his day.

This approach is all the more significant in the context of the 1980s, when contemporary art was being redefined and the relationship between art and society was being renewed.

In his work, the artist uses humor and play as the driving forces behind his creations, while at the same time asserting a certain lightness in the face of the increasing intellectualization of art.

He thus marked a break with the history of contemporary art, introducing a dialogue between traditional art and more popular forms of expression, which were to have a lasting influence on future artistic trends.

Hervé di Rosa's stylistic influences  

It is precisely in this respect that Hervé Di Rosa's approach can be surprising: how can an artist whose work is based on the combination of folk art and contemporary art find himself reinterpreting, almost subverting, such diverse styles, both naïve and daring, without ever losing his singularity?

In the 1980s, at a time when contemporary art was tending towards abstraction and minimalism, Di Rosa seized on the codes of pop art and fused them with influences from naive art and popular culture, in a burst of shapes and colors.

His practice of visual appropriation is part of a re-evaluation of art brut, but with a more thoughtful, urbanized gesture that resonates with questions about consumer society and mass culture.

The artist plays on visual stereotypes, hijacking popular icons and inserting them into a universe where comics rub shoulders with graffiti, all supported by an explosive palette of primary colors.

In this search, Di Rosa is close to contemporaries such as Robert Combas and Rémi Blanchardwhose use of body and line recalls the energy of the street, while remaining more accessible, more playful, and sometimes even naive.

His fixed, distorted and often caricatured figures speak volumes about his desire to subvert the aesthetic order, in the manner of figuration libre, but with a wry sense of humor and a critical eye on the times.

His signature

Not all Hervé di Rosa's works are signed.

Although there are variations, here's a first example of his signature:

Appraising your property

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A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you to provide an estimate of the market value of your work.

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