Jean Dubuffet

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (July 31, 1901 - May 12, 1985) was one of the most famous French painters and sculptors of the second half of the 20th century.

Biography

Dubuffet was born in Le Havre. He moved to Paris in 1918 to study painting at the Académie Julian, but after six months he left the Académie to study independently. In 1924, doubting the value of art, he stopped painting and took over his father's business selling wine. He took up painting again in the 1930s, but again stopped, only turning to art for good in 1942. His first solo show came in 1944. He approached the surrealist group in 1948, then the College of Pataphysique in 1954.

Influenced by Hans Prinzhorn's book Artistry of the Mentally Ill, Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut for art produced by non-professionals working outside aesthetic norms, such as art by mental patients, prisoners, and children. He amassed his own collection of such art, including artists such as Aloïse Corbaz and Adolf Wölfli. The collection is now housed at the Musée de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. Dubuffet sought to create an art as free from intellectual concerns as Art Brut, and his work often appears primitive and child-like.

Many of Dubuffet's works are painted in oil paint using an impasto thickened by materials such as sand, tar and straw, giving the work an unusually textured surface. From 1962 he produced a series of works in which he limited himself to the colours red, white, black, and blue. Towards the end of the 1960s he turned increasingly to sculpture, producing works in polystyrene which he then painted with vinyl paint.

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Dubuffet died in Paris in 1985.

Selected bibliography

Catalogue Raisonné

Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule I-XXXVIII, Pauvert: Paris, 1965-1991
Webel, Sophie, L’Œuvre gravé et les livres illustrés par Jean Dubuffet. Catalogue raisonné. Lebon: Paris 1991

Writings

Jean Dubuffet, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, Tome I, II, Paris 1967; Tome III, IV, Gallimard: Paris 1995
Jean Dubuffet, Asphyxiating Culture and other Writings. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1986
ISBN 0941423093

Principal studies

Michel Ragon, Dubuffet, New York: Grove Press, 1959
Peter Selz, The Work of Jean Dubuffet, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1962
Max Loreau, Jean Dubuffet, délits déportements lieux de haut jeu, Paris: Weber, 1971
Andreas Franzke, Jean Dubuffet, Basel: Beyeler, 1976
Andreas Franzke, Jean Dubuffet, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1981
Michel Thévoz, Jean Dubuffet, Genf: Albert Skira, 1986
Mildred Glimcher, Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality. New York: Pace Gallery 1987
ISBN 0896597822
Mechthild Haas, Jean Dubuffet, Berlin: Reimer, 1997
Jean Dubuffet, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 2001
ISBN 2-84426-093-4
Laurent Danchin, Jean Dubuffet, New York: Vilo International, 2001
ISBN 2879392403
Jean Dubuffet: Trace of an Adventure, ed. by Agnes Husslein-Arco, Munich: Prestel, 2003
ISBN 3791329987
Michael Krajewski, Jean Dubuffet. Studien zu seinem Fruehwerk und zur Vorgeschichte des Art brut, Osnabrueck: Der andere Verlag, 2004
ISBN 3-89959-168-2