Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet , born with the Harbor the July 31st 1901 and died in Paris the May 12th 1985, is a painter, Sculpteur and Plasticien French.
He is also the first theorist of the Rough Art and the author of vigorous criticisms of the dominant culture in particular in his test Asphyxiating culture .
Biography
Dubuffet is born in Le Havre, only sons of important wine merchant, Georges Dubuffet.In 1918, it goes to Paris in company of his/her faithful friend Georges Limbour and follows the courses of the Académie Julian which it leaves after only six months. During six years, it will seek its way of independent. It binds amongst other things to a group of artists of Montmartre and in 1922, it meets André Masson, then Raoul Dufy, Juan Gris and finally Fernand Leger with which it binds.
In 1924, doubting its art, Dubuffet ceases painting and embarks for South America where it carries out various small employment on projects and for a company of heating.
In 1925, it decides to return in France to deal with the family company of which he becomes trader during eight years. In 1927, it Marie with Paulette Bret of which it will have a girl later two years, and leaves to settle with Paris in 1929.
In 1933, Dubuffet goes back to painting and various artistic activities, which will lead it to divorce. He marries then in 1937 Emilie Carlu known as “Lili”. Its trade, then the war, will be right of its plastic activity until in 1942, where it can be finally plunged completely in creation.
In 1944 takes place its first exposure personal to the Gallery Rene Drouin. In 1945, it mentions for the first time the term of rough Art, and meets its New Yorkean galerist Pierre Matisse. In 1947, Michel Tapié becomes his merchant and a first exposure of rough Art is organized, under the name of “Hearth of Rough Art”.
1948: It makes an important personal exposure to New York and approaches the surrealist by the means of André Breton, with which it starts exchanges impassioned about the rough Art.
Starting from 1949, Dubuffet is a certain success in America with an article of Clement Greenberg and meets it of the painter and collector Alfonso Ossorio. It goes even to the the United States in 1951, where it meets Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and Yves Tanguy. This same year appears the book of Michel Tapié “a different art”, where Dubuffet côtoie enter others Pollock, and which launches the concept of “informal art”
In 1955, it settles with Vence, from where it will make the return ticket with Paris the following years. A retrospective is organized with the ICA of London. The dimension of Dubuffet climbs, the collectors multiply.
In 1960, after a second retrospective with New York, Dubuffet decides to break with Pierre Matisse, and Daniel Cordier becomes his only merchant for Paris and New York. It buys an apartment to constitute its personal secretariat. It adheres to the College Pataphysique and starts musical experiments in collaboration with Asger Jorn of the group CoBrA. A great retrospective with the Musée of Decorative Arts is organized.
In 1962, Dubuffet arranges a house and a workshop with the Touquet close to Étaples and starts its most famous cycle, which it will develop during twelve years, L `“Hourloupe”. The Museum off Modern Art of New York devotes a great retrospective to him.
In 1967, it completely ceases practicing painting to be devoted to experiments in volumes. It makes a series of donations: with the Museum of Decorative Arts, with the Art Institute of Chicago, with the MoMA of New York and with the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.
In 1971, Dubuffet decides to create a foundation to join together a significant whole of its works. The Town of Lausanne sign the agreement of donation of the Collection of Rough Art by offering a permanent place of exposure to him. The house of Vence is sold.
1973: Great retrospective with the museum Guggenheim of New York. In 1974, Dubuffet takes again the drawing and painting and puts a term at the Hourloupe. The Fondation Dubuffet is recognized establishment of public utility. Dubuffet bequeaths its files to him and an important sample of its production.
In 1984, the series of the “Test cards” is presented to the French house of the Biennale de Venise. Mrs. Dubuffet dies at the 103 years age. May 12th 1985, Jean Dubuffet dies in Paris. A retrospective is organized with the Fondation Maeght. The series of the “Withdrawals of case” is presented to the Center Pompidou.
Work
The work of Dubuffet consists of thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures which extend from 1942 to its death in 1985, that is to say over one 43 years period. Prolific and protean, it includes/understands many periods and different styles, energy of the purest " abstraction; matiérique" with picturesque scenes resembling the drawings of children, while passing by joinings of all kinds.
The fascination of Dubuffet for the pictorial production of the mentally ills, the prisoners and the children will lead it to develop a released art of the dryness of the middle-class codes and intellectualism. Its work and its analyzes often claim primitive art, popular or childish: “ I am a spare-time painter for which the every day are Sunday ”, he declared.
Maltreated figures and bodies
As of the beginnings, Dubuffet seems to make clean slate of any know-how. Marked by the graffiti and the drawings of children, one finds many treated portraits and characters in a naive or grotesque way. Voluntarily clumsy, they are painted in a frontal way, without prospect. Sometimes incised in the matter even of the table, they seem to emerge from there, as in the series of the Corps of Ladies (1950 - 1951) which makes the transition with the completely abstract part, matieric, of the production of Dubuffet. In the the Seventies, Dubuffet will return to the figures of childish characters, drawn in manner more precise, with the thick features, integrated in assemblies ( Théâtres of Memory ) or compositions into the bright colors carried out in a spontaneous way and forces ( Psycho-sites and Random Sites (1981 - 1982)).Abstractions
In a will of depersonalization, Dubuffet makes a diving in the matter and the total abstraction between 1957 and 1960, with series like the Célébrations of the Ground or the Matériologies which will connect it to the Informal art. Dubuffet then uses mixed techniques of Oil-base paint thickened with materials like the Sable, the Goudron and the Paille, giving to its parts an exceptionally texturized surface and a rough consistency. Although the Hourloupe can be regarded mainly as being abstracted, Dubuffet will return to the total abstraction only at the end of its life, with the series of the Mires and the Non-Lieux (1983 - 1984).Joinings
Throughout its pictorial practice, Dubuffet practiced the joining of various elements, the wings of butterfly (1953 - 1955) to the wallpaper fragments, cut out then reassembled in the Théâtres of Memory (1975 - 1979).Hourloupe
It is the most known whole and most spectacular of the work of Dubuffet.As of 1962, it makes series of drawings to the pen, in a a little automatic way, beginning thus the cycle from the Hourloupe , its longer, which will last until in 1974. Creations of the Hourloupe are characterized by flat tints red, blue, white and black. The name is the title of a book containing of the drawings with the ballpoint pen. With the Hourloupe , it runs the counter to its former works, making disappear any texture for a largely partitioned quadrichromy, with hatchings and flat tints, which it declines in tables, sculptures and vast installations.
Dubuffet then gives up the oil-base paint and materials natural for vinyl paintings and the markers and, starting from 1966, in order to pass to great achievements in volume, it learns how to control the Polystyrène, the Polyester, the epoxy, the shotcrete and paintings polyurethane. Primarily abstract, this vast systematic proliferation can form here objects, there plants, or even of the characters being able to be driven and interact in its creation Coucou Bazaar (1973), conceived for its two retrospectives with New York and Paris.
Dubuffet and Rough Art
Dubuffet invented the term Rough Art (of which it almost “deposited” the patent) to indicate the art produced by not-professionals working apart from the esthetic standards agreed, remained for the variation of the artistic medium, or having undergone a social and psychological rupture sufficiently strong so that they are found completely insulated and start to create.The history of the Rough Art is closely related to the life of Dubuffet, and it is before all the history of a collector and an impassioned amateur.
First steps and discovered
This history begins in 1923, when Dubuffet discovers books the illustrated Ripoche Clementine, visionary lunatic which draw and interpret the configuration of the clouds, and that little time after, Paul Budry, his joint tenant, offers to him it from now on celebrates “Bildnerei der Geisteskranken” (Expressions of the madness) of Hans Prinzhorn, appeared the previous year with Berlin, and which carries an esthetic interest to the production of works the “insane ones”.The life takes again its rights, then, in 1945, very accelerates, and Dubuffet, released of its obligations but with some under out of pocket, can then launch out fully in the prospection and the purchase of “virgin” works of creators. Accompanied by Jean Paulhan and Le Corbusier, it goes initially to Switzerland on the invitation of Paul Budry, with the psychiatric hospital of Waldau of Bern. It discovers there work of Adolf Wölfli and Heinrich-Anton Müller, meets Walter Morgenthaler (the biographer and psychiatrist of Wölfli). With Lausanne, they are work of Louis Soutter and Marguerite Burnat-Layered branches which fill with enthusiasm it. In a letter with Rene Auberjonois, Dubuffet employs for the first time the term of rough art. It goes to asylum Rodez to meet the Dr. Ferdière, psychiatrist of Antonin Artaud, which shows in Dubuffet works of Guillaume Pujolle and Auguste Forestier, then it turns over to Switzerland to visit the “small museum of the madness” of Dr. Ladame.
In 1946, it is the discovery of Aloïse by the means of Jacqueline Porret-Forel (biographer and doctor of Aloïse) who is then with Paris, then of Joseph Crepin at the time of its 2ère exposure to the Lefranc Gallery. Dubuffet also enters in correspondence with Gaston Chaissac (whose Jean Paulhan showed him some letters). The two men meet the following year during the exposure Chaissac to the gallery the Rainbow, whose Dubuffet writes the foreword.
Paris: The Hearth then the Company of rough Art
The first exposure of the Hearth of rough Art proceeds in the basements of the Drouin Gallery (Michel Tapié ensures permanence of it). It is the occasion of the meeting with André Breton, which buys works of Crepin. Extremely profitable meeting since Breton will become active member of the Company of the rough Art, and will make discover in Dubuffet of the artists such as Augustin Lesage, Maisonneuve, Hector Hyppolite or the drawings of Scottie Wilson.In 1948, the Hearth of the Rough Art moves in a house lent by the editions Gallimard and becomes the Company of the rough Art, association law of 1901, whose founders are Dubuffet, André Breton, Charles Ratton, Michel Tapié, Jean Paulhan and Henri-Pierre Roché. One counts among the members of the personalities such as Michaux, Malraux or Levi-Strauss. An exposure of Gironella is organized, then Aloïse, to which Dubuffet will return visit to Switzerland. This last will see then Chaissac at his place, then publishes “the art of insane, the key of the fields” in N°6 of the Cahiers the Pleiad.
In 1949, a great collective exposure is organized with the gallery Drouin (with 200 works and 63 authors), and Dubuffet signs “the rough Art preferred with cultural arts”. Discovered bread crumbs of the Prisoner of Basle and exposure Wölfli.
The American episode
Starting from 1951, the wind turns towards the the United States, where Dubuffet often goes, has many knowledge and enjoys a good recognition. Moreover, the bad accounts of the Company of the rough Art precipitate the departure of the collections for the the United States (which will be definitively installed only in 1953), in the friend of Dubuffet Alfonso Ossorio, in its ranch of Long Island. The Company is dissolved, André Breton resigns. 1.200 works of approximately hundred authors are then counted. Dubuffet holds a conference with the Faculty of Arts of Lille, “Honor with the wild values”, and makes publish “Hippobosque with the scrap-metal” of Gaston Chaissac, with the editions Gallimard. After the collections in America, it follows one period a little calmer, here and there punctuated by some discoveries and exposures with the complicity of Alphonse Chave.Return to Paris
Until 1962, where the collections return to Paris in a building of three floors bought street of Sevres, intended to become center of study and private museum. The Company of rough Art is reconstituted, Slavko Kopac is named by it preserving. In the year which follows, thousand new parts of 70 authors will be acquired. 390 drawings of the Lonné Factor will be bought of a blow, as well as the first fabric of Augustin Lesage. And as of 1964 appear the two first booklets of the Company: in the first one finds the prisoner of Basle, Clément, the Lonné Factor and Palanc; second as for him is entirely dedicated to the text of Morgenthaler on Adolf Wölfli. These publications will continue in an irregular way until our days, where has just appeared the Fascicule N°22.In 1967, is held one of the most important exposures of rough Art, with the Musée of decorative Arts. One can see there a selection of 700 works of 75 authors (on few 5.000 works whom the Company has then). Dubuffet signs the foreword of it, “Places at the antisocial behavior”, and one does not count less than 20.000 visitors.
Lausanne and the Collection of rough Art
1971 is a date hinge for the collections of rough Art. Dubuffet having decided to make gift of it (what will bring the final dissolution of the Company of the rough Art), it is finally the town of Lausanne which promises to arrange a place to accommodate works there, thus returning towards the country where all started. The Castle of Beaulieu, private mansion of, will be this place where finally will be transferred works in 1975 and will be inaugurated on February 26th 1976 (and where they are always, under the name of Collection of rough art). Michel Thévoz will be the faithful conservative of the beginning until in 2001. It is in 1971 also that an exhaustive catalog of the collection is written, counting 4.104 works of 135 authors of rough Art “pure”, that Dubuffet must distinguish for ethical and ideological reasons from an “additional” collection (known as “New Invention” in 1982) where the authors approach a professional step, and where 2.000 other works then are counted.Beyond Dubuffet
As of 1971, Dubuffet meets Alain Bourbonnais, architect, creator and especially impassioned collector of popular and marginal art which, on the councils of Dubuffet, calls his collection of art “Out the standards” and it installs in the Workshop Jacob, street Jacob, and which will become Fabuloserie. Escaping Dubuffet, its guard and his theorist, the rough Art then begins its “public life” and the formidable adventure which will bring it to us, through two major exposures: Singular of art in 1978, immense popular success, with the National museum of Modern art of the Town of Paris (of which the police chiefs are Suzanne Pagé, Alain Bourbonnais, Michel Ragon and Michel Thévoz); and Outsiders in 1979 with London, carried out by Roger Cardinal, who will make the bridge with America and the Outsider Art, opening the doors of the Market of international Art…
Quotation
“Art does not come to sleep in the beds which one made for him; it is run away at once that his name is pronounced: what he likes it is the incognito. Its best moments are when he forgets how he is called. ” Jean Dubuffet. 1960
See too
Sources
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