René Herbst was born in Paris in 1891 and came of age at a moment when traditional decorative arts were being actively questioned. He trained as an architect and designer during a period marked by rapid industrialization and social change. Early in his career, he rejected the decorative excess that defined much French furniture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Herbst was deeply influenced by new ideas about standardization, rational construction, and social responsibility in design. Rather than viewing furniture as a luxury object, he approached it as a functional tool for everyday life. His outlook aligned him with the emerging modernist movement rather than mainstream Art Deco luxury. By the 1920s, he had established himself as a radical voice within French design circles. His work consistently challenged the dominance of ornament and traditional craftsmanship.

Herbst’s most influential work emerged in furniture design, where he embraced industrial materials such as steel, aluminum, and rubber. He believed these materials offered durability, efficiency, and honesty that traditional woods and veneers could not. His most famous design, the Sandows Chair of 1929, paired a tubular steel frame with elastic rubber webbing originally used in industry. This chair embodied his commitment to comfort, flexibility, and structural clarity. Herbst also designed chaise longues, tables, and lighting that followed the same principles of minimal form and exposed construction. In parallel with his design practice, he played a major role in organizing modernist thought in France. In 1929, he co-founded the Union des Artistes Modernes, a group dedicated to rejecting luxury-oriented design in favor of functional modernism. Through both his objects and his advocacy, Herbst helped define a distinctly French path toward modern design.