Art Goes To School
of Delaware Valley
Portfolio Print Summary
Artist (last name, Dubuffet, Jean
first):
Birth/Death: July 31, 1901-May 12,
1985
Title of Work: Fiston la Filoche
Date of Work: 1966-1967
Print No:____________
Print Title: ____________
Worksheet Updated: ____________
Portfolio #:____________
Included in Portfolio #s: ____________
Nationality: French
Period/Style: Renault Collection
Size: 60 ½ x 24 x 14 ½
Medium: Painted sculpture
Location: Private Collection
Biographical born in Le Havre, France into a middle-class family of wine distributors
Highlights:
well-educated but preferred to study the mentally ill and children; he
believed that savagery or basic animal instinct lead to universal harmony,
not intellectual theory or analysis
1918-moved to Paris to study painting at the Academie Julian; he left after
six months to study independently
1924-took over his father wine business
1942-returned to art using thick oil paint occasionally mixed with sand,
gravel, tar and straw, creating a highly textured surface for raw, primal
figures-resulted in the ‘Hautes Pates’ series
Continued to admire the artwork of the mentally ill and children, attempting
to recreate their style-childlike depictions of cows, landscapes and city
dwellers; often he created gross caricatures of individuals challenging
society’s standards of beauty and tradition; declared there was no
separation of the beautiful and the ugly, ugliness did not exist
“raw art” a term Dubuffet coined for the art of children and the insane; art
that comes from within the artist and not influenced by what other people
thought
“art brut” the term applied to Dubuffet’s paintings; after joining with other
surrealist artists-primitive childlike approach to art, art created without the
influence of society
Many of his works were assemblages-combining found objects and other
elements into 3 dimensional integrated whole (i.e. Door with Couch-Grass
1957 made from fragments of paintings, grass and pebbles)
1962- Hourloupe series- use of the felt tip and ballpoint pens-would start
out with simple scribbles on paper and finalize it with vibrant colors of red,
blue, white and black; these works resemble jigsaw puzzles where tiny,
obscure closely spaced figures and faces appear
1966-death-sculptures inspired by the Hourloupe series, large enough to
walk through, made from paper mache and polyester resin
1976-Dubuffet’s collection found a permanent home in Switzerland’s
Chateau de Beaulieu, a space that was once used for studying the
behavior of the mentally ill and now houses the huge collection of the art
brut works
Other Works by Artist: Cow with a Subtile Nose, 1954
Grand Maitre of the Outsider, 1947
Monument with Standing Beast,
Interpretation:
Presentation Ideas: Trash art sculptures
Have students fill their blank sheet with wavy crossing, zig zag lines using
a pencil. Then have them search for animal or human figures/faces within
those lines, tracing them with a black marker. Color patches of these
figures with red, blue or black, leaving some areas white. Outline the
figures with a wide black marker, trace the remaining lines between the
figures with a fine black marker.
Portraits of classmates/self-portraits
Mix paint with sand, straw and create their own work
Compare and contrast:
Selected References: www.theartstory.org
www.artsmarts4kids.blogspot.com
www.kidsartists.blogspot.com
www.en.wikipedia.org