The iconoclastic production of Jean Dubuffet, a main figure of the outsider art, is the trigger of the passion of the gallerist Daniel Varenne for art. Jean Dubuffet quickly lost interest in his studies to enrol at the School of Fine Arts in Le Havre. Then he won Paris and the Julian Academy. A few years later, his friend the writer Georges Limbourg (1900-1970), bought him his first works and presents to Jean Paulhan (1884-1978).
Due to this critic and publisher, he participated in the exhibition " The nude in contemporary art " at the René Drouin gallery in 1943.
The city and the crowd are an important source of inspiration in his painting of the post-war period. Conversely, from 1944 to 1947, Jean Dubuffet multiplies trips to the Sahara where he begins a process of deconditioning, it is theoretically particularly in l’Asphyxiante culture, an essay published in 1968.
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)
Landscape with a character , May-June 1960
Indian ink on paper
Signed and dated on the top right
33 x 25 cm
Provenance
- Madame de Gavardie's collection
- Daniel Varenne's collection
Estimation
40 000 / 60 000 euros
When he realized Landscape with a character sold by PIASA, Jean Dubuffet shared his time between Paris and “Le Vortex”, a property of Vence. At that time, Daniel Cordier became his dealer for Europe and the United States. In this work, the silhouette of a man emerges from a landscape of energetic features of Indian ink. Visual translation of the commitment of the artist against a culture later defining, as asphyxiant, the schematic character is a waypoint to the still intact imagination of childhood.
