Aimée Humbert 

 

Aimée Humbert has been Insea’s world president from 1973 to 1976. But it was a time without many records of memories for  archives and Aimée was really not interested in self promotion. She was a woman involved in actions, international relations, as she considered her first work in INSEA and as art teacher, was to create exchanges, international research in order to promote art education all over the world. She was involved in the development of creativity, artistic and cultural identity and she supported at world level the idea that education and art were priorities in favor of human values. Certainly she contributed to create a « net » of artists and art teachers over the world,  between friends and without any internet support. So the archives are very rare about her work.  However, in 1973, during my teacher training in her classroom, I had the great honor to meet her, when I became art teacher. And in 1975, during the Sevres INSEA’s World Congress, she asked me to animate a workshop with Eliot Eisner! 

Without personal ambition but a lot of work, she organized this INSEA’s World Congress near Paris and it was successful.  Ideas, exchanges, exhibitions, collection of children artwork from all parts of the world… (this collection always exists in Sèvres archives) offered a real place to International research and exchanges.

In the same time, she was in charge of « Journées artistiques de Sèvres »,  an International event organized each year in CIEP* at Sevres, witch offered opportunity to art teachers from all over of the world to exchange their researches and projects. She edited a report with all international contributions (Cf Document in PJ « Art Contemporain et pratique pédagogique- Journées artistiques, Sèvres, 16-20 avril 1975, ed in Juillet 1975). 

She organized since 1968 such a lot of « Journées artistiques »  about questions of Environment, in 1969 and 1970, Creativity in 1972, Pictures and Communication in 1973, Real and Imagination, in 1980 and 1981. In the publications, we can note the eminent contributions of Al Hurwitz, Eliot Eisner, Judith Burton, Suzanne Lemerise, Irena Wojnar, Ana Mae Barbosa, Akeo Murakami…and many others. (I succeeded her in this task in 1982).

She was a model for all of those who met her.  She was enthusiast, so free and full of projects, so curious of everything and deeply concerned by all human and creative activity, she was a wonderful teacher.   

All those who met Aimée Humbert during InSEA’s meetings and congresses remember how she was generous and active, always learning from others and giving her knowledge, curious of art and cultural teaching all over the world.

As it is said in the french and local news-paper, she was also a painter, enjoying light and colors, space and nature and painting with large and vigorous gesture. She was a so precious friend, even when life makes distance between us, even when nobody in her new life knowns how important she was for a lot of students, pupils and teachers. I hope we will remember her marvelous smile, generous being and her strong contribution for art education and exchanges all over the world.  

Marie-Françoise Chavanne

* CIEP: Centre International d’Etudes Pédagogiques