Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet’s work is marked by a rebellious attitude toward prevailing notions of high culture, beauty, and good taste. He began making art in earnest at age 41, after a stint in the army and a successful career as a wine merchant. The next four decades were tremendously prolific: he wrote poetry and theoretical texts, played jazz, experimented widely with art-making materials and techniques, and worked in many mediums, including painting, drawing, printmaking, large-scale outdoor sculpture, and what he called “animated painting”—works bridging painting, sculpture, dance, and theater, and featuring live performers.
Though he was an academically trained painter from a bourgeois family, Dubuffet maintained what he called in a 1951 lecture an “anticultural position.”1 He advocated for “instinct, passion, mood, violence, madness”2 rather than analysis and reason, as well as closer proximity to nature and natural forms and the discarding of traditional notions of beauty. “Look at what lies at your feet!” he once said. “A crack in the ground, sparkling gravel, a tuft of grass, some crushed debris offer equally worthy subjects for your applause and admiration.”3 Such values were embodied in what Dubuffet termed art brut (or “raw art”), produced on the margins by children, outsider and folk artists, and the mentally ill. His own collection of this work, formed in part with the help of the Surrealist Andre Breton and writer Jean Paulhan, was donated to the city of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1971.
In the studio, Dubuffet was a relentless innovator, experimenting with unorthodox tools and materials by mixing gravel into his paints; making impressions from foliage, orange peels, and tapioca; or covering canvases with tin foil, as in Soul of the Underground. He worked fluidly between mediums, with his trials in painting informing his radical work in the print shop, where he attacked lithographic stones with sandpaper, flaming rags, and chemicals. He carefully inked webs onto paper and then translated them into allover horizon-less compositions on canvas, creating views that suggest both the microscopic and the celestial. His printmaking reached its zenith with Phenomena, a group of 362 lithographs parsed into 24 albums, which evoke myriad natural states, textures, and surfaces.
Introduction by Sarah Suzuki, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, 2016
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Jean Dubuffet, “Anticultural Positions” (lecture, The Arts Club of Chicago, 1951), reprinted in J. Dubuffet (New York: World House Gallery, 1960), 192.
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Jean Dubuffet, “Anticultural Positions” (lecture, The Arts Club of Chicago, 1951), reprinted in J. Dubuffet (New York: World House Gallery, 1960), 192.
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Jean Dubuffet, "Empreintes," in Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, ed. Herschel B. Chipp (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 611.
- Introduction
- Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. He is perhaps best known for founding the art movement Art Brut, and for the collection of works—Collection de l'art brut—that this movement spawned. Dubuffet enjoyed a prolific art career, both in France and in America, and was featured in many exhibitions throughout his lifetime.
- Wikidata
- Q170076
- Introduction
- Dubuffet began his career as a wine merchant, and did not devote himself completely to painting until the age of 41. He valued, collected, and emulated 'art brut,' a term he coined to describe work that is non-conformist, unprocessed, spontaneous, and insulated from all social and cultural influences. He was prolific and moved through figurative and abstract phases, arriving in 1962 at an invented style that he called Hourloupe, based on graphic black-lined cells painted in a restricted palette of mostly red, blue, and white. These were first paintings and drawings, but soon became sculptural, at times becoming monumental or environmental.
- Nationality
- French
- Gender
- Male
- Roles
- Artist, Writer, Musician, Genre Artist, Collector, Painter, Sculptor
- Names
- Jean Dubuffet, Jean-Philippe-Arthur Dubuffet, Jandu Bufe, Louis-Léon Forget
- Ulan
- 500019113
Exhibitions
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From the Collection: 1960–1969
March 26, 2016–
March 19, 2017 MoMA
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Jean Dubuffet: Soul of the Underground
October 18, 2014–
April 5, 2015 MoMA
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Printin’
February 15–
May 14, 2012 MoMA
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Gifted: Collectors and Drawings at MoMA, 1929–1983
October 19, 2011–
February 12, 2012 MoMA
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The Modern Myth: Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times
March 10–
August 30, 2010 MoMA
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Jean Dubuffet has 107 exhibitionsonline.
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Various Artists, Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Flouquet Aventure, No. 2, December 1921 1921
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Jean Dubuffet Mme Arthur Dubuffet 1921
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Jean Dubuffet Cyclist with Five Cows (July) 1943
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Jean Dubuffet L'Homme du commun 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Landscape with Onlooker (Paysage au veilleur) 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Message "I've been thinking of you since Saturday..." (Message "Je pense à toi depuis samedi...") 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Beach with Bathers (Plage aux baigneurs) 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Grand Jazz Band (New Orleans) December 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Eater (Mangeuse) 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Man Eating a Small Stone (Homme mangeant une petite pierre) 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Message: "The Key is Under the Shutter" (Message: "La Clef est sous le volet") (1944)
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Jean Dubuffet Shadows Cast in the Pine Forest June 3, 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Personage June 29, 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Childbirth March 1944
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Jean Dubuffet The Violinist (Le Violoniste) March 1944
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Jean Dubuffet Snack for Two 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Matière et Mémoire ou les lithographes à l'école 1945 (prints executed 1944)
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Jean Dubuffet Mangeurs d'oiseaux from Matière et mémoire ou les lithographies à l'école 1944, published 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Wall with Parachute (Mur au parachute) 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Stuck to the Wall (Adhésion au mur) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Man in Soft Hat Before a Wall (Homme au chapeau mou devant un mur) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Section of a Sagging Wall (Pan de mur ventru) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Pisser at the Wall (Pisseur au mur) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Profile of a Man's Head in Front of a Wall (Tête d'homme de profil devant un mur) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Bird Perched on the Corner of the Wall (Angle de mur à l'oiseau perché) from the supplementary suite for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Misty Wall (Mur embué), rejected plate for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Nude Man with a Hat (Homme nu au chapeau) 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Wall with Black Borders (Mur aux marges noires), rejected plate for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Saltpetred Wall (Mur au salpêtre), rejected plate for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Decayed Walls at 34 Rue Lhomond (Les Murs vétustes du 34 rue Lhomond), rejected plate for the book Les Murs by Eugène Guillevic 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Wall with Inscriptions April 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Wall and Man (Mur et homme) 1945
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces I (Suite de visages I) (variant) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces III (Suite de visages III) (variant) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces IV (Suite de visages IV) (variant) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces V (Suite de visages V) (variant) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces VI (Suite de visages VI) (variant) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces II (Suite de visages II) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces III (Suite de visages III) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Faces IV (Suite de visages IV) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Country Residence (La maison de campagne) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Inhabited Landscape (Paysage habité) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Inhabited Landscape (Paysage habité) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Figure, Tree, House (Personnage, arbre, maison) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Group of Suntanned Faces (Suite de visages bronzes) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Michel Tapié (August) 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Limbour (November-December 1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Léautaud, Redskin-Sorcerer November 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Jean Paulhan (1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Paul Léautaud (1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Pierre Benoit (1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Paul Léautaud (1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Untitled (1946)
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Jean Dubuffet Building Facades July 1946
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Jean Dubuffet Joë Bousquet in Bed January 1947
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Jean Dubuffet Gaston Chaissac 1947
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Jean Dubuffet Portrait of Henri Michaux January 1947
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Jean Dubuffet Jean Fautrier (July-August) 1947
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Jean Dubuffet Joë Bousquet in Bed (Joë Bousquet au lit) 1947
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Jean Dubuffet René Bertelé (July-August) 1947
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Jean Dubuffet Arab 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Desert and Bedouin 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Pollination of Palm Trees (Fécondation des palmiers) 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Arab, Marabout, Flies and Footprints, page from the sketchbook El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Footprints, page from the sketchbook El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Footprints in the Sand, page from the sketchbook El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Seated Arab, Camel and Two Palm Trees, page from the sketchbook, El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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Jean Dubuffet Sketchbook: El Golea, II 1948
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