Sixty Works by Modern Masters - Flipbook - Page 103
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet
French, 1901 - 1985
Personnage, 1963
Gouache, watercolour and layers of paper affixed to paper
26 x 11¾ inches / 67 x 30 cm
Signed with the artist’s initials and dated lower right: J.D. 63
The present work represents
Dubuffet’s departure, in 1962, from
his earlier signature Art Brut style
to adopt a radical graphic aesthetic
which he named Hourloupe.
Inspired by a serendipitous doodle
drawn in ballpoint pen by the artist
as he spoke on the phone, this
new style was generally linear and
controlled. Although his palette was
typically restricted to red, white, blue
and black in the series, the present
work is a particularly dynamic
example, displaying loosely-applied
patches of pastel colours around a
central, more restrained motif.
Dubuffet’s imagery in the Hourloupe
series was intended to evoke the
manner in which objects appear in
the mind’s eye. The artist remarked
that ‘these graphics with constantly
ambiguous references have the
virtue [...] to put into question the
foundation of that which we have
traditionally looked at as reality.’
102
Provenance
Anon. sale, Christie’s, Paris, 25 May 1992, lot 87
Galleria d’Arte Maggiore, Bologna
Acquired at the above sale by the previous owner
Exhibited
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, L’Hourloupe di Jean Dubuffet, June-September 1964,
no. 23
Literature
Max Loreau, Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fascicule XX:
L’Hourloupe I, Lausanne, 1966, no. 116 EG 55, illustrated p. 59
"For me, insanity is super
sanity. The normal is
psychotic. Normal means
lack of imagination,
lack of creativity."