Jean Dubuffet

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Lore & Background

Dubuffet was born in Le Havre on 31 July 1901 to a family of wholesale wine merchants who were part of the wealthy bourgeoisie. His childhood friends included the writers Raymond Queneau and Georges Limbour. He moved to Paris in 1918 to study painting at the Académie Julian, becoming close friends with Juan Gris, André Masson, and Fernand Léger. Six months later, upon finding academic training to be distasteful, he left the Académie to study independently. He later started a small wine business in Paris and during the German Occupation of France supplied wine to the Wehrmacht, boasting in an autobiographical text about having made substantial profits. He took up painting again in 1942, often choosing subjects from everyday life such as people sitting in the Paris Métro or walking in the country, using strong, unbroken colors recalling the palette of Fauvism. His first solo show came in October 1944 at the Galerie Rene Drouin in Paris. In 1945, after being strongly impressed by a show of Jean Fautrier's paintings, Dubuffet started using thick oil paint mixed with materials such as mud, sand, coal dust, pebbles, pieces of glass, string, straw, plaster, gravel, cement, and tar. This impasto technique was best manifested in his series 'Hautes Pâtes' or Thick Impastoes, exhibited in 1946 at the Galérie René Drouin. He approached the surrealist group in 1948, then the College of Pataphysique in 1954. Between 1947 and 1949, Dubuffet took three separate trips to Algeria to find further artistic inspiration. In June 1948, he officially established La Compagnie de l'art brut in Paris with Jean Paulhan, Andre Breton, Charles Ratton, Michel Tapie, and Henri-Pierre Roche. Influenced by Hans Prinzhorn's book Artistry of the Mentally Ill, Dubuffet coined the term art brut (meaning "raw art") for art produced by non-professionals working outside aesthetic norms. His collection of such art, including artists Aloïse Corbaz and Adolf Wölfli, is now housed at the Collection de l'art brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Reader's Guide

Dubuffet's significance lies in his founding of the art brut movement, which championed raw, untrained artistic expression outside conventional fine art. His use of crude materials and the irony infused into many of his works incited a significant amount of backlash from critics, who accused him of 'anarchy' and 'scraping the dustbin.' However, Clement Greenberg wrote that '[f]rom a distance, Dubuffet seems the most original painter to have come out of the School of Paris since Miro...' and called him 'perhaps the one new painter of real importance to have appeared on the scene in Paris in the last decade.' Dubuffet achieved rapid success in the American art market, largely due to his inclusion in the Pierre Matisse exhibition in 1946. A Newsweek article dubbed him the 'darling of Parisian avant-garde circles.' His first solo exhibition in America was in 1947 at the same gallery. Specific American artists interested in his art were Alfonso Ossorio and Joseph Glasco. Dubuffet's art brut collection is often referred to as a 'museum without walls,' as it transcended national and ethnic boundaries, and effectively broke down barriers between nationalities and cultures. His aim, as he wrote in his Prospectus aux amateurs de tout genre, was 'not the mere gratification of a handful of specialists, but rather the man in the street when he comes home from work....it is the man in the street whom I feel closest to, with whom I want to make friends and enter into confidence, and he is the one I want to please and enchant by means of my work.'

Did You Know?

• Dubuffet boasted in an autobiographical text about having made substantial profits by supplying wine to the Wehrmacht during the German Occupation of France.
• His first solo show was in October 1944 at the Galerie Rene Drouin in Paris.
• Clement Greenberg called Dubuffet 'the most original painter to have come out of the School of Paris since Miro.'
• Dubuffet made three separate trips to Algeria between 1947 and 1949 to find artistic inspiration from nomadic tribes.
• His collection of art brut, including works by Aloïse Corbaz and Adolf Wölfli, is now housed at the Collection de l'art brut in Lausanne, Switzerland.