Jean Dubuffet

French, 1901-1985

BiographyJean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet, 1901–1985, was a French painter and sculptor.

Dubuffet was born in Le Havre to a family of wholesale wine merchants who were part of the wealthy bourgeoisie. He moved to Paris in 1918 to study painting at the Académie Julian. Six months later, he left the Académie to study independently. In 1924, doubting the value of art, he stopped painting and took over his father's business selling wine. He took up painting again in the 1930s when he made a large series of portraits in which he emphasized the vogues in art history. But again he stopped, developing his wine business at Bercy during the German Occupation of France. In 1942, he decided to devote himself to art, painting figures of nude women in an impersonal and primitive way, in strong and unbroken colors by chosing subjects from everyday life.

In late 1960–1961, Dubuffet began experimenting with music and sound and made several recordings with the Danish painter Asger Jorn, a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA. The same period he started making sculpture, but in a very not-sculptural way.

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