Jean Dubuffet

(French 1901-1985)

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” ― Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet, born July 31, 1901 was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker. His art aethetics steered away from the traditional standards of beauty, which believed was a more authentic approach to image making. Dubuffet is best known for founding the Art Brut movement.

This movement, which also translates into, ‘outsider art’, focused more on artists whose work was more outside of the cultural mainstream aesthetics. Born to a family of wholesale wine merchants who were a part of the wealthy bourgeois. Dubuffet had the access of high academic studies, he moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian for painting and sculpture. After a few months he soon realized his distaste for academic training and left to study independently. In this time he traveled and explored other forms of art such as poetry, music, and the study of languages. In 1942, at age 41 he started to create art again. In his early works Dubuffets main subject matter were people in everyday life settings like people taking the train or walking in the countryside. He painted with strong, steady colors, evoking the style of Fauvism, and featured individuals placed close and cramped together, which gave a distinct psychological impact on the viewers. As seen in his painting, Cows and Groomers (1943). Expressing an abstract childish style and a simple subject matter, this piece expresses the anticonforming attitude Dubuffet expressed in his work. In Dubuffets career he advocated for, “passion, mood, violence, and madness” rather than reason, tradition, and natural forms of beauty.

In 1944, Dubuffet had his first solo show in Paris, making his third attempt at becoming an established artist. In 1945 after being inspired by Jean Fautriers paintings at one of his Paris show, Dubuffet started to experiment more with unorthodoxed tools and materials. Using thick oil paint mixed with mud, pebbles, glass, coal, dust, string, gravel, cement, and more, he grew further away from the traditional methods of painting and into his own style. Instead of the traditional method of applying oil paint to a canvas, the use of new materials in this impasto painting technique allowed him to create physical marks in his work. This new style led to mixed reviews from other artist and viewers, but for Dubuffet it led to a breakthrough. As seen in his painting, Soul of the Underground (1959) Dubuffet applied aluminum foil over the canvas and then applied the paint on top to create a new texture to the piece. As an artist, Dubuffet blurred the lines between paintings and sculptures as he continues to mix unconventional materials into his works.

Starting in the 1960’s, he developed one of his most celebrated and famous series in his career, l’Hourloupe. This series lasted from 1962 to 1974 and included paintings, sculpture, and even costumes. Focusing on heavily textured and abstract styles with clean white or black backgrounds and bold uses of blues and reds. Every piece in this series started with a scribbled doodle, which he could develop further on a larger scale. This series showed his interconnected view on life and the ever changing flowing of energy we experience. One of his most notable pieces in this series titled, Le Cirque (1970) is a large-scale sculpture to mimic the style of an urban plaza. While living in Paris, Dubuffet was highly inspired by the modern streetscapes of the postwar environment and the hectic movement of people and traffic. Taking elements he used previously in the piece, Elements d'architecture contorsionniste (1969-1970), created a new environment creating allusions inspired from his mental psyche. With, Le Cirque (1970) viewers can enter into Dubuffet’s visual alternate universe.

On May 12 1985, Dubuffet died from emphysema in Paris at the age of 83. His legacy carries on as a successful painter and sculpture that played an influential role in the art brut movement. He donated a large amount of his art brut work to the Collection de l'art brut in Lousanne, Switzerland.

American Fine Art, Inc. is proud to feature the original works and limited editions of Jean Dubuffet. Visit our 12,000 sq. ft. showroom in Scottsdale, AZ or call today. Our website is offered only as a limited place to browse or refresh your memory and is not a reflection of our current inventory. To learn more about collecting, pricing, value, or any other art information, please contact one of our International Art Consultants. We look forward to giving you the one on one attention you deserve when building your fine art collection. We hope you find our website helpful and look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale soon.