Sixty Works by Modern Masters - Flipbook - Page 93
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet
French, 1901 - 1985
Le Béret Rose, 1956
Oil on canvas collage
34 x 24 inches / 88 x 61 cm
Signed and dated upper right: J Dubuffet 56
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse: J Dubuffet Le Béret Rose août 56
Jean Dubuffet is celebrated for
his innovative use of materials
in painting, his love of a highlytextured paint surface encouraging
the practice of mixing oil paint
with sand, tar or straw. The present
work sees Dubuffet experimenting
with pre-painted canvas collage, a
method he developed in 1955 in
an extended exploration of different
mediums. The artist named the
results of this method his Tableaux
d’Assemblages.
Le Béret Rose is exemplary of
Dubuffet’s Art Brut style, a term
which he coined to describe works
made outside the tradition of fine
art that expressed raw visions or
emotions, without being constrained
by convention. Its jagged outlines,
earthy colours and over-simplified
forms, combining to produce a
primitive and child-like effect,
locate the work at the high point of
Dubuffet’s Art Brut production.
Provenance
Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Dr Philip Sandblom Collection, Lund
Private collection
Exhibited
Stockholm, National Museum, The Grace and Philip Sandblom Collection,
1981, p. 84, illustrated in colour
Literature
Max Loreau, Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fascicule XII: Tableaux
d’Assemblages, Lausanne 1969, no. 62, illustrated p. 61
"Personally, I believe very much in values
of savagery. I mean: instinct, passion, mood,
violence, madness."
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