JEAN DUBUFFET | CHAMEAU ENTRAVÉ AU DÉSERT [CAMEL TIED UP IN THE DESERT]

Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago

Sotheby Parke Bernet, 18 May 1972, Lot 5

Waddington Gallery, London

Sotheby's New York, 4 November 1994

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Max Loreau, Ed., Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet: Fascicule IV, Roses d'Allah, clowns du désert, Lausanne 1967, cat. no. 165, p. 94, illustrated

Born in Le Havre in 1901, Jean Dubuffet is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the 20^th century. He was born into a winemaking family before dedicating himself to a creative practice in the visual arts. In the 1940s Dubuffet began mixing various materials including mud, sand, pebbles, glass string and other materials into oil paint, creating a thick paste, which he then applied with a spatula to carve and cut lines into the textured surface of his canvases. His experimentation with various media would become one of the most celebrated components of his paintings. The painter is primarily known today as the founder of the Art brut movement, which cultivated his interest for “low art” and highlighted marginalized figures such as children, the mentally ill and the outcast. 

The present work is from the body of work Dubuffet produced while in Algeria. Dubuffet initially went to Alger and visited the Sahara in February 1947 before returning in November of that year to spend six months in El Golea, returning again in 1949. Dubuffet’s work from the period frequently depicts camels and dromedaries, gazelles and palm trees, as well as portraits of locals and their activities.

Jean Dubuffet’s work has been exhibited around the world, and is included in the collections of many of the world’s most respected museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among many others.