Jean Dubuffet
Villa sur la route [Villa by the Road]1957Dubuffet was fascinated by graffiti and art created by people without formal artistic training, such as children and the mentally ill. As a way of going against traditional art practices, the artist would paint in thick layers, then scratch into the surface to produce a kind of graffiti, as seen in this painting. This work is one of twenty-four paintings that Dubuffet produced in Vence, in the south of France, in 1957. The deliberately primitive style was shocking to the art world at the time.
Glossary [1] Open
Primitive
A term once used to describe the art of non-Western cultures such as Africa and Oceania, now generally seen as deprecatory and indicative of an outdated belief in Western superiority. It is also used to describe artists, usually self-taught, who work outside of the currents of mainstream art practice.
- Accession no. GMA 830
- Medium Oil on canvas
- Size 81.30 x 100.30 cm
- Credit Purchased (Knapping Fund) 1963
Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901 - 1985)
Dubuffet was born in Le Havre, the son of a wealthy wine merchant. He studied art in Paris but stopped painting in 1925 to enter the wine trade. Apart from a brief period in 1933, Dubuffet only took up art seriously in 1942. He had his first solo exhibition in 1945, the same year he began to advocate and collect Art Brut (Uncultured Art), a movement that has had a profound effect on art since the 1950s. Dubuffet was inspired to create art in a deliberatively primitive manner, producing work that is diverse and experimental in both material and style.
Glossary [2] Open
Art Brut
A term used by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created spontaneously. He identified this practice among psychiatric patients and children. It is also called 'outsider art'.
Primitive
A term once used to describe the art of non-Western cultures such as Africa and Oceania, now generally seen as deprecatory and indicative of an outdated belief in Western superiority. It is also used to describe artists, usually self-taught, who work outside of the currents of mainstream art practice.