Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty

Featuring newly commissioned essays and photography of rarely exhibited works, this book highlights the radicalism of Jean Dubuffet, who was one of the most provocative voices of the postwar avant-garde. In 1940s occupied Paris, Jean Dubuffet began to champion a progressive vision for art; one that rejected classical notions of beauty in favour of a more visceral aesthetic. Taking a pioneering approach to materiality and technique, the artist variously blended paint with sand, glass, tar, coal dust, and string. At the same time, he began to assemble a collection of Art Brut - work that was made outside the academic tradition of fine art - even visiting psychiatric wards from 1945 to collect work by patients. This book features texts from leading scholars and is accompanied by images that illuminate Dubuffet’s attempts to move beyond the artistic expectations of his time. The works are grouped into six thematic sections that focus on specific series, from his graffiti-inspired Walls and his notorious portrait series, People are Much More Beautiful Than They Think to the Corps de dames, a controversial series of female landscapes, and his anthropomorphic sculptures, Little Statues of Precarious Life. Exquisitely produced, this celebration of Dubuffet’s work embraces his world view that art is for everyone, not just the elite. AUTHOR: Eleanor Nairne is Curator at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. She writes frequently about art in publications such as the London Review of Books and has curated exhibitions on Lee Krasner and Jean-Michel Basquiat. She lives in London. 300 colour illustrations