 |
 |
|
|
|
SEOUL |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DUBUFFET Jean
DUBUFFET (1901 - 1985)
Alfred Barr, curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, did not hesitate, as of 1954, to say “it is possible that the most original painter to have emerged from Paris since the war is not an abstract artist. A man of exceptional intelligence and maturity, Jean Dubuffet, combines a child-like style with audacious innovations accompanied by a grotesque sense of humor.”
Thinker and militant of art “in the raw”, he had a unique technique for painting. He replaced the almighty oil painting by a secret mixture he kept well under wraps. Basic lead acetate and whiting, sand, mastic, plaster, glass shavings, varnish and shellac were the stuff his creations were made of.
Dubuffet made art entertaining, a never-ending fiesta. And his works were supported by some of the great poets of his time like Paulhan, Ponge and Michaux…
The enthusiasm accompanying Dubuffet’s life work in the United States has yet to wane. He is still considered one of the master artists of the 20th century.
Dubuffet is the most expensive artist of the Ecole de Paris.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean Dubuffet was born in Le Havre on July 31, 1901. He attended art classes in his youth and in 1918 moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, which he left after six months. During this time Dubuffet met Raoul Dufy, Max Jacob, Fernand Léger, and Suzanne Valadon and became fascinated with Hans Prinzhorn's book on psychopathic art. He traveled to Italy in 1913 and South America in 1914. Then Dubuffet gave up painting for about ten years, working as an industrial draftsman and later in the family wine business. He committed himself to becoming an artist in 1942.
Dubuffet's first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie René Drouin in Paris in 1944. During the 1940s the artist associated with André Breton, Georges Limbour, Jean Paulhan, and Charles Ratton. His style and subject matter in this period owed a debt to Paul Klee. From 1945 he collected Art Brut, spontaneous, direct works by untutored individuals, such as mental patients. The Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first solo show in New York in 1947.
From 1951 to 1952 Dubuffet lived in New York. He then returned to Paris, where a retrospective of his work took place at the Cercle Volney in 1954. His first museum retrospective occurred in 1957 at the Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany. Major Dubuffet exhibitions have since been held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum. His paintings of L'Hourloupe, a series begun in 1962, were exhibited at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 1964. A collection of Dubuffet's writings, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, was published in 1967, the same year he started his architectural structures. Soon thereafter he began numerous commissions for monumental outdoor sculptures. In 1971 he produced his first theater props, the "practicables." A major Dubuffet retrospective was presented at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, and the Joseph-Haubrichkunsthalle, Cologne, in 1980-81. In 1981 the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum observed the artist's eightieth birthday with an exhibition. Dubuffet died in Paris on May 12, 1985.
|