DUBUFFET Jean
Jean DUBUFFET (July 31, 1901, Paris, May 12, 1985) was a French painter, sculptor and plasticist.
He is the first theorist of an art style to which he gave the name of "crude art", of the productions of marginals or mentally ill: paintings, sculptures, calligraphy, from which he admits to having largely inspired himself.
On October 20, 1945, the first "marking exhibition" in liberated Paris was that of his works at the René Drouin gallery, while he was still an unknown painter, causing a real scandal. He was also the author of vigorous criticisms of the dominant culture, notably in his essay, Asphyxiating culture (1968), which created controversy in the world of art. On the occasion of the first exhibition of his collection of raw art which he organized in 1949, he wrote a treatise, L'Art brut favoré aux arts culturelles.
Officially propelled on the front of the artistic scene by a retrospective of 400 paintings, gouaches, drawings, sculptures, which takes place at the Musée des arts décoratifs de Paris from December 16, 1960 to February 25, 1961, the most contested and admired French artist of the post-war period created the event of this early year. He became the inspiration of many artists, adherents of "other art", variant of crude art, among which Antoni Tàpies, as well as followers of artistic contestation like the Spanish group Equipo Crónica.
His work is composed of paintings, assemblages often mistakenly called collages, sculptures and monuments, the most spectacular of which are part of an ensemble, L'Hourloupe (1962-1974), as well as architectures: the Falbala enclosure and the Falbala villa. It was the subject of retrospectives at the Grassi Palace in Venice, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
His personal collection, the Collection de l'art brut, which since 1945 included artists discovered in prisons, asylums, marginals of all kinds, then owned by the Compagnie de l'art brut founded in 1948, should have remained in Paris. But the delays of the French administration prompted Dubuffet to accept the offer of the city of Lausanne in Switzerland, where the collection was installed at the Château de Beaulieu and finally given.
Considered as little brought, procedural, atrabilary, he often became angry with his entourage. Before the death of Dubuffet in 1985, Jean-Louis Prat had all the sorrows of the world to organize the retrospective of 150 paintings by the artist, which was finally held from July 6 to October 6 at the Maeght Foundation.
On the other hand, he was generous, as his friends, Alexandre Vialatte, Alphonse Chave, Philippe Dereux, and the numerous donations he made during his lifetime, among others, a set of 21 paintings, 7 sculptures and 132 drawings at the Musée des arts décoratifs de Paris from his personal collection.