Jean Dubuffet

Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris
Paolo Marinotti, Milan
Marlborough Gerson Gallery, Inc., New York
Sotheby's, New York, November 11, 1988, lot 139B
Waddington Galleries, Ltd., London
Christie's, London, December 9, 1999, lot 641
Private Collection
Waddington Galleries, Ltd., London
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2000

Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Centro Internazionale delle Arti e del Costume, L'Hourloupe di Jean Dubuffet, June - October 1964, cat. no. 17
Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, L'Hourloupe: Gouaches, December 1964 - January 1965, cat. no. 23, illustrated

Max Loreau, ed., Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule XX: L'Hourloupe I, Paris, 1966, cat. no. 100, p. 50, illustrated
Waddington Galleries, Jean Dubuffet, London, 2004, p. 27, illustrated in color

This work is in very good condition overall. There is a slight undulation to the sheet, artist pinholes intermittently along the edges and scattered glue accretions, which are inherent to the artist's working method. There is an associated crease at the left bottom corner pinhole. There are some extremely minor spots of paint loss along the top edge of the sheet, which are visible under close inspection. The sheet is hinged verso to the matte intermittently along the edges. Framed under Plexiglas. *Please note the auction begins at 9:30 am on November 14th.*
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Executed in 1962, Paris Plaisir V fuses together the artist's two most highly-esteemed and consequential mature series: the Paris Circus and L'Hourloupe. Bustling with energy, the jagged, impulsive line that darts around the composition describes the frenetic heartbeat and joie de vivre of Parisian existence that Dubuffet had witnessed on his return to the French capital after a break of several years in the countryside at Vence. Rendered in a celebratory palette of bright hues, there is a refined simplicity to the composition and an unconscious spontaneity in its charged white line that defines the segmented space of the paper and effectively marks the culmination of the Paris Circus cycle and its evolution towards the Hourloupe series later that year.

When Dubuffet left Paris in 1955, the city was war-scarred and melancholic. When he returned several years later in 1961, he found the French capital to be transformed and full of optimism. Its new vibrant atmosphere was intoxicating, inspiring the creation of his exuberant and vibrant Paris Circus series – compositions populated with the broad panorama of city life that he encountered in the capital's now teeming boulevards. The frenetic density of these jumbled, celebratory landscapes was heightened further by the flattened perspectival plane and their cropped, all-over formats – compositional devices redolent of child-like drawings, which ultimately embodied the raw and unfettered vision of Art Brut that informed Dubuffet's entire oeuvre.

Categorically opposed to the idea of cultivated art as propagated in schools and museums, Dubuffet, who himself had received no formal artistic training, denounced the selective nature of official culture and nurtured the concept of art informel: a spontaneous and primitive art that rejected conventional notions of harmony and beauty in favour of unrefined vitality and individual expression. This reductive philosophy found ultimate expression in his Hourloupe cycle, which occupied Dubuffet for the twelve years following 1962, and was acclaimed as his most revolutionary. Encompassing all media, it mounted a challenge to perceived boundaries between real and imaginary realms and saw him describing the world in a childlike doodle of bold outlines and interlocking abstract shapes. Among the first compositions to herald this radical shift in outlook, Paris Plaisir V stands as a monument to Dubuffet's relentless hunger for invention and creation throughout his oeuvre.