Jean Dubuffet

André Frénaud, Paris
Jeffrey Loria & Co., New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in March 1999

Paris, Galerie René Drouin, Tableaux et dessins de Jean Dubuffet, October - November 1944, cat. no. 31
Paris, Cercle Volney, Exposition de peintures, dessins et divers travaux exécutés de 1942 a 1954 par Jean Dubuffet, March - April 1954, cat. no. 10
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Rétrospective Jean Dubuffet 1942 - 1960, December 1960 - February 1961, cat. no. 10, pl. 1, illustrated in color

Louis Parrot, Jean Dubuffet, Paris, 1944, no. 14, illustrated
Max Loreau, ed., Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet: Marionnettes de la ville et de la campagne, fascicule I, Paris, 1965, cat. no. 221, p. 151, illustrated
Andreas Franzke, Dubuffet, New York, 1981, pp. 6-7, illustrated
Art Gallery no. 20, Tokyo, 1986, no. 02, p. 7, illustrated in color
Michael Thévoz, Dubuffet, Geneva, 1986, p. 32, illustrated in color
Marcel Paquet, Dubuffet, Paris, 1993, no. 35, p. 41, illustrated in color
Marianne Jakobi, Jean Dubuffet et la fabrique de titre, Paris 2006, n.p., illustrated in color
Sophie Berrebi, "Paris Circus New York Junk: Jean Dubuffet and Claes Oldenburg 1959 - 1962", Art History, February 2006, fig. 3.14, p. 97, illustrated
Valérie Da Costa and Fabrice Hergott, Jean Dubuffet: Oeuvres, écrits, entretiens=Works, writings and interviews=Obras escritos y entrevista, Barcelona and Paris, 2006, pp. 24-25, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., Madrid, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Jean Dubuffet o el idioma de los muras, 2008, fig. 1, p. 15, illustrated

This work is in good condition overall. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at 212-606-7254 for a condition report prepared by Terrence Mahon. This work is framed in a beveled faced gilded wood frame with a linen liner.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Vue de Paris, Le Petit Commerce (1944) is one of Jean Dubuffet's earlier works and is a clear indicator of what was to follow both in his philosophical approach to his art, and more directly in his technical approach and his choice of subject matter. Dubuffet's oeuvre spans many decades with an awe-inspiring range of medium and style, yet the core of his work lies in figuration and representation. In the case of the present work, a clear link can be seen to the important Paris Circus series he would produce over 15 years later.

Before deciding in 1942, for the third and final time, to devote his life to art, Dubuffet had spent time variously as an art student, a wine merchant, and an industrial draftsman.  His first solo exhibition came in the year this painting was executed, 1944.  His trademark use of a bold, primary color palette with little subtlety and his disregard for what one might consider "the beautiful" is evident early on. Dubuffet dismissed established Western European culture and academic aesthetic traditions, and nearly all aspects of  Vue de Paris, Le Petit Commerce reflect his fascination with the art of primitive peoples, the young, and the mentally disabled or disturbed.  The broad swaths of brash color, the lack of spatial relativity or perspective of any type, and the intense linearity reflect his renunciation of Renaissance artistic progression.  All four buildings are rendered in strict two-dimensionality, the colors applied regardless of function or reality, and the three figures are as a child would draw them with bulbous white faces, simplistic outlined features, and a total disregard for proportionality. Even the signage on the building (though it does depict some wares for adults such as corsets, wine, and billiards) is written in a juvenile style.

Dubuffet wanted neither to focus on a literal mimetic art, nor on an overly abstract art of the cognoscenti.  His paintinges were to be an immediate art which took as direct inspiration the works of ancient civilizations and untrained naïfs.  In this way, his depiction of Paris life assumes a new vitality and his later Paris Circus series of the 1960s would further the attitude so illuminated in Vue de Paris, Le Petit Commerce.