Executed in 1971, at the height of Dubuffet’s most significant and esteemed L’Hourloupe cycle of works, Les Trois promeneuses constitutes the apogee of the inimitable and profoundly influential corpus of one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century. Eschewing the constraints of representational painting in his depiction of three walking figures, Jean Dubuffet instead meticulously intertwines amorphous colors and shapes to balance figuration and abstraction, form and fantasy. Pulsating with mesmeric energy, the present work typifies on an impressive scale the playfulness and visual dynamism for which this series, and Dubuffet’s entire Art Brut oeuvre, are most acclaimed.

Challenging us to consider our preconceived artistic notions anew, Les Trois promeneuses embodies the crux of not only Dubuffet’s conceptual project but also the aesthetic ambitions of his highly acclaimed, longest enduring series: L’Hourloupe. An expansive body of drawings, paintings, and sculptures executed between 1962 and 1974, L’Hourloupe illustriously originated with a simple doodle in ballpoint pen that Dubuffet scrawled mindlessly on a scrap of paper as he spoke on the telephone. Itself a transposition of a preparatory drawing onto industrial Klegecell paneling with vinyl paint, the present work contains free-flowing and intertwining linear elements executed in the constrained palette of industrial colors such as blue, black, red, and white. Thus rupturing the boundaries between painting and sculpture, Les Trois promeneuses evidences the distinct pictorial and representational shift signified by this semi-figurative, semi-abstract body of work. In a blurring of figure and ground, what can be seen in one instance as a grouping of human figures the very next emerges as a staccato juncture of methodically composed contours and cellular structures of striped and solid color. The formal and material qualities found in the present work typify the ambitious visual effect Dubuffet sought from his oeuvre: “that of an uninterrupted and resolutely uniform meandering script…[which] will thereby dissolve the categories which our mind habitually employs to decipher…the facts and spectacles of the world. Herewith the circulation of the mind from one object to another, from one category to another will be liberated and its mobility greatly increased” (the artist in a letter to Arnold Glimcher, 1969). Erupting with poetic energy, these fantastical figures embody the spirit of the word L’Hourloupe, invented by the artist to imply a wonderful object or a grotesque creature. Equally, they channel the tenets of Art Brut synonymous with the artist’s oeuvre, namely the aesthetic influence of graffiti writers, prisoners, children and the insane and a renunciation of occidental notions of artistic beauty.

Infused with a lively energy, Les Trois promeneuses further evokes the spirited Coucou Bazar performance for which it was created. Emerging from L’Hourloupe cycle, the seminal theatrical spectacle debuted in the summer of 1973 during his retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and subsequently was performed September 1973 at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris. The present work was crafted in Dubuffet’s Vincennes studio as a Practicable, a three-dimensional prop that would be animated by concealed cast members to accompany actors adorned in costumes. These spirited figures provide a sensation of movement referential of the bustling figures in Dubuffet’s early 1960s Paris Circus series, articulating the visual chaos of the artist’s ceaselessly intense urban environs. Palpably manifesting Dubuffet’s subconscious imagination, Les Trois promeneuses became a living work that not only blurred the boundaries between painting, sculpture, performance, but also the perceptive boundaries between art and life. Creating the sensation of complete visual and physical absorption within its painted surface, the present work remains a celebration of the absurdist world of Coucou Bazar.

Exemplifying the vital, jubilant and spontaneous spirit of Dubuffet’s mature style, Les Trois promeneuses is a triumphant testament to his desire for entrancing, unbridled creativity. Explosive with whimsical intricacy, the present work is an instantly recognizable example of the enduringly important L’Hourloupe cycle and Coucou Bazar spectacle. As art critic Peter Schjeldahl aptly concludes, "If Dubuffet teaches anything, it is that there are no conclusions, and no true beginnings, either. There is only the middle, the presentness of life… Beyond that, his great gift is to make the reality of this all-consuming torrent palpable, and to make it seem a cause of joy rather than terror" (Peter Schjeldahl, Dubuffet, 1980 in: The Hydrogen Jukebox: Selected writings of Peter Schjeldahl, 1978-1990, New York, June 1980, p. 60).