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Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963 : paintings, sculptures, assemblages : an exhibition / organized by James T. Demetrion ; essays by Susan J. Cooke, Jean Planque, and Peter Schjeldahl

Catalog Data

Author:
Dubuffet, Jean 1901-1985  Search this
Demetrion, James  Search this
Cooke, Susan J  Search this
Planque, Jean  Search this
Schjeldahl, Peter  Search this
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden  Search this
Subject:
Dubuffet, Jean 1901-1985  Search this
Physical description:
167 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 29 cm
Type:
Books
Exhibitions
Exhibition catalogs
Date:
1993
©1993
Notes:
Catalog of an exhibition organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution.
Also issued online.
Contents:
Foreword / James T. Demetrion -- Acknowledgments / James T. Demetrion -- 1942 and After: Jean Dubuffet in His Century / Peter Schjeldahl -- Jean Dubuffet's Caricature Portraits / Susan J. Cooke -- A Reminiscence / Jean Planque -- Catalog of the Exhibition -- Checklist of the Exhibition -- Chronology
Summary:
In 1942 Jean Dubuffet, a Parisian wine merchant, retired from his successful business and took up another line of intoxicants. The late-blooming artist-provocateur enjoyed immediate success, despite negative reviews and charges of vulgarity. Fiercely independent and iconoclastic, Dubuffet (1901-1985) disdained classical notions of beauty and reason in favor of visual rawness and instinct. In his work, he employed a crude pictorial style and often favored nontraditional materials such as leaves, butterfly wings, and sponges.
Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963 examines paintings, sculptures, and assemblages from what many critics believe to be the most innovative period in the artist's long career. Beginning with Dubuffet's first mature works, which depict daily life and reflect elements of popular culture in Paris, the book spans his whimsical paintings, imaginary landscapes, comical cows, and portrait caricatures of well-known French writers, literary critics, and artists, including artist Jean Fautrier, diarist and theater critic Paul Leautaud, novelist Andre Dhotel, critic and publisher Rene Bertele, and poet and critic Georges Limbour, who was also a boyhood friend.
The book also includes several essays on the artist and his work, and numerous quotes from Dubuffet's writings are in the catalogue section. Susan J. Cooke discusses the artist's portraits from 1946 to 1947, noting their continuing ability to startle, disturb, and amuse. Jean Planque reminisces about his long relationship with the artist, describing Dubuffet as a man of extremes - spontaneous, impatient, discreetly generous, with a love of contradiction and an extraordinary capacity for work. Peter Schjeldahl provides a succinct overview of Dubuffet's work and identifies Dubuffet's career as a long explosion that, as the artist said it would, defied the mainstream tradition of Western painting still in touch with the pictorial genres and aesthetic ideals inherited from the Renaissance. In addition to more than ninety full-page color plates of Dubuffet's works, a select bibliography and chronology are included.
Jean Dubuffet 1943-1963 accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Call number:
N40.1.D82 D37 1993
N6853.D78A4 1993X
N40.1.D82D37 1993
Data Source:
Smithsonian Libraries
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:siris_sil_445423