Jean Dubuffet
dal 10/10/2007 al 15/11/2007
Segnalato da
10/10/2007
Jean Dubuffet
Robert Sandelson Gallery, London
Paintings and Sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s. The artist is well known for being at the forefront of "Art Brut", essentially an art produced by individuals outside of the professional aesthetic norm, such as mental patients, prisoners and children.The exhibition includes works from the Hourloupe series, some of his most significant pieces. The series began as a collection of doodles made with a ballpoint pen, which gradually evolved to include felt-tip pen drawings.
Paintings and Sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s
This autumn, Robert Sandelson is proud to present works by French artist Jean Dubuffet, the internationally acclaimed artist closely linked to the 1940s art movement ‘Art Brut’. The exhibition will focus on his later works including both sculpture and paintings from the 1960s and 1970s.
Jean Dubuffet studied painting in Paris in 1918, however he left his course after just 6 months and in 1923 chose to refrain from painting entirely, instead entering his father’s wine trade business. Nearly a decade later Dubuffet took to art again, in particular producing many puppets and masks. However it was only in 1942 that he fully embraced his career and skill as a painter and sculptor. At his first solo show in Paris in 1944 the subject matter of his paintings was largely everyday life- Parisian street scenes, people in the Metro, musicians and portraits of friends.
Dubuffet is well known for being at the forefront of ‘Art Brut’, essentially an art produced by individuals outside of the professional aesthetic norm, such as mental patients, prisoners and children. Within his own artwork Dubuffet sought to emulate their work and create an art as free from intellectual concerns as possible; perhaps explaining the style he adopts which often appears ‘primitive’, grotesque or child-like. By the 1960s Dubuffet had began to progress away from the raw ‘Art Brut’ style, however there was still a continued sense of the impulsive which signified his previous style.
The exhibition will include works from Dubuffet’s Hourloupe series, some of his most significant pieces. The series began as a collection of doodles made with a ballpoint pen, which gradually evolved to include felt-tip pen drawings. Dubuffet liked using marker pens for both the hard, unaccented line they created and also that this technique again removed himself from the traditional art world. In 1972 Dubuffet explained the series’ title: “…'L'Hourloupe' is a word whose invention was based upon its sound. In French, these sounds suggest some wonderland or grotesque object or creature, while at the same time they evoke something rumbling and threatening with tragic overtones…I associate it, by assonance, to '' hurler '' (to roar), to '' hululer '' (to hoot), to '' loup '' (wolf)…and the title of Maupassant's book '' Le Horla '' inspired by mental instability.” This made-up word of Dubuffet’s own invention is perhaps a further attempt to distance himself from the mainstream art world. In the Hourloupe series Dubuffet restricted himself to a palette of red, white, blue and black, making the function of color non-expressionist.
Dubuffet is an internationally celebrated artist and has exhibited across the world. He is widely collected and many influential galleries such as Tate, London and the Guggenheim, New York hold his paintings in their permanent collection.
Robert Sandelson Gallery
5 Cork Street - London