12.6.11

Jean Dubuffet


Born July 31, 1901, in Le Havre, France, Jean Dubuffet attended art classes in his youth and in 1918 moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, which he left after six months. During this time, Dubuffet met artists such as Raoul Dufy, Max Jacob, Fernand Léger, and Suzanne Valadon, and became fascinated with Hans Prinzhorn’s book on psychopathic art. He traveled to Italy in 1923 and South America in 1924. Then, Dubuffet gave up painting for about ten years, working as an industrial draftsman and later in the family wine business. He committed himself to becoming an artist in 1942. Dubuffet’s first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie René Drouin, Paris, in 1944. During the 1940s, the artist associated with André Breton, Georges Limbour, Jean Paulhan, and Charles Ratton. His style and subject matter in this period owed a debt to Paul Klee. From 1945, he collected Art Brut, spontaneous, direct works by untutored individuals, such as mental patients. The Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first solo show in New York in 1947.

The term Art Brut was first used by the painter Jean Dubuffet to refer to a range of art forms outside the conventional dictates of the art world. He amassed a large collection of graffiti art and art made by the mentally ill, prisoners, children, and other naive (untrained) artists, whose raw or innocent vision and directness of technique he admired. In turn, he sought to emulate these qualities in his own work, and in 1948 he established a society to encourage the study of Art Brut. This kind of art has also been referred to as “outsider art;” that designation has been applied to Dubuffet’s own work (Guggenheim Online).


1. Musical experiences (Experiences musicales), 1960


2. Ancien Combattant, 1945. Oil on canvas


3. Cow with a Beautiful Tail, 1954. Oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm. The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo


4. Jean Dubuffet, Woman trying a Hat, 1943


5. Corps de Dame: Olympia, 1950


6. Brunette with a Fleshy Face (Chataine aux hautes chairs; Brunetta dal volto carnoso), 1951


7. Miss Cholera, 1946


8. Spotted Cow (Vache Tachetée), 1954. Oil on canvas


9. Cow, 1954


10. The Cow with a Subtile Nose, 1954. Oil and enamel on canvas, 88.9 x 111.8 cm. MoMA, New York


11. Corps de Dame, 1950


12. Corps de Dame


13. Triumph and Glory (Triomphe et gloire), 1950. Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 96.5 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York


14. The Hairdresser (La coiffeuse), 1950. Oil on canvas, 116 x 89cm


Two women: one in academic style by Bouguereau (Baigneuse, 1890); the other conceived as "art brut" by Dubuffet.


15. Tree of Fluids, oil on canvas, 1950


16. Corps de dame: jardin fleuri, 1950. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania


17. Woman's Body (L'hirsute), 1950. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo


18. Corps de Dame—Château d’Étoupe, 1950. Oil on canvas, 114.4 x 87.5 cm. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College


19. Corps de Dame: Bloody Landscape, 1950


20. Corps de Dame: Le Metafisyx, 1950


21. Corps de Dame, 1950


22. Corps de Dame, 1950. Ink on paper, 27 x 21.2 cm. MoMA, New York


23. Seize corps de dames, lithograph, 1950


24. Corps de Dame, 1950. Ink on paper, 32.3 x 24.9 cm. MoMA, New York

Online resources
Post-WWII Figural Art

1 comment:

Mónica Ottino said...

Una maravilla. ¡Qué pintores! Gracias. Abrazo, Mónica

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