Biography

James Herbert (born 1938) is an American painter and filmmaker known for directing a series of music videos for the band R.E.M. He has also made over forty short films, including John Five (1992) and Jumbo Aqua (2001), and directed four independent features: Scars (1997), Speedy Boys (1998), Rabbit Pix (2005) and Abandoned House (2007). Some of his short films have been collected on the video compilation Figures (1990). Herbert was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his BA at Dartmouth College and his MFA at the University of Colorado in 1962. After graduation, Herbert moved to Georgia and joined the faculty of the art department at the University of Georgia.

He studied with the abstract expressionist painter Clyfford Still and the experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage.

He has received several awards, including an Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant, two grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, a National Endowment for the Arts senior fellowship, a Lewis Comfort Tiffany grant, and a McDowell Colony fellowship.

Herbert was R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe's art professor when he studied at the University of Georgia. Stipe greatly admired Herbert's films, and in addition to having him helm R.E.M.'s earliest music videos, he later cited Herbert as a significant influence on him individually and artistically.