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Jean Dubuffet

"We must leave aside all habits."

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Notes of biography

Jean Dubuffet was born in Le Havre (France) in 1901. He joined evening classes of the School of Beaux-arts. He studied drawing at the Academy Julian in 1918, saw Suzanne Valadon and Max Jacob regularly, visited Raoul Dufy in his studio, but he gave up the art to work in the domestic company (trade in wines).
Jean Dubuffet, after one to go and return between art (1933-1937) and trade (1937-1942), decided to dedicate himself exclusively to the painting. He practiced then a representational painting, experimented, questions permanently forms, materials and techniques. He made Paulhan acquaintance, then Pierre Seghers, Eluard, André Frénaud, Guillevic, Francis Ponge, Fautrier and the others else. His first personal exhibition was organized in 1944 (Gallery René Drouin, Paris). Dubuffet made his first lithographs in Fernand Mourlot’s studio.
He exhibited in Paris and made scandal because Dubuffet represented primitive persons with visible genital organs. The reading of « La création chez les malades mentaux » of Hans Prinzhorn brought him to practice a raw art; « The painting says better that the words » said Dubuffet, the painting becoming a wild and involuntary therapy. In 1947 took place his first exhibition in New York in the Gallery Pierre Matisse, first one of a series which will last until 1959. In the 50s, Dubuffet fixed and framed imprints, used different materials to describe the «landscapes of the mental». He imagined, in the next decade, the cycle of "Hourloupe", an inventory of a world « parallel to ours ». This inventory, he finished in 1974, gathered paintings and gigantic sculptures in epoxy for which he encircled blue, white and red forms with black. Other works followed: the "Theaters of memory", the "Sites", the "Mires" and the "Non-lieux". On the occasion of his 80th birthday, big exhibitions were organized in New York (Guggenheim Museum) and Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou).
Jean Dubuffet, considered as one of the most important artists of XX ° century, died in Paris in 1985.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Le travail de Jean Dubuffet », G. Picon, Skira, Genève, 1973
  • « J. Dubuffet : a retrospective », Guggenheim museum, New York, 1973
  • « Cahier Dubuffet », Cahiers de l'Herne, no22, Ed. de l'Herne, Paris, 1973
  • « J. Dubuffet », D. Marchesseau, cat. d'expo., Fondation Gianadda, Martigny, 199
  • « Du côté de l’art brut », Michel Ragon, Ed. Albin Michel, Paris, 1996
  • « Jean Dubuffet », Michel Ragon, George Fall Ed., 1996
  • « Dubuffet. Le grand bazar de l'art », C. Delavaux, Ed. Palette, 2008
  • « Jean Dubuffet et les enjeux d'un discours », C. Delavaux , Ed. Palette, 2010
  • « Dubuffet architecte », D. Abadie, coll. « Beaux Arts », Ed. Hazan, 2011
  • « J. D. - Metamorphoses of Landscape », cat. d'expo., Fondation Beyeler, 2016
To read from the artist :
  • « Prospectus et tous écrits », 4 tomes, Gallimard, Paris, 1967/1995
  • « Jean Dubuffet. Œuvres, écrits, entretiens », V. Da Costa, F. Hergott, Ed. Hazan, 2006
Website :
www.dubuffetfondation.com

More :


Art movements

+ ART BRUT / 1945-1985 / Adolphe Wölfli, Aloïse, Heinrich Anton Müller, Laure Pigeon, Jeanne Tripier, etc.
+ MODERN SCULPTURE / 1930-1970 / William Kenneth Armiage, Constantin Brancusi, Anthony Caro, Naum Gabo, Pablo Gargallo, Isamu Noguchi, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover