In this video, join Sotheby's Brooke Lampley in an exploration of Jean Dubuffet’s Grand nu charbonneux, to be offered as a highlight of The Macklowe Collection May 2022. Executed in 1944, Grand nu charbonneux is a seminal and exceptionally early example of Jean Dubuffet’s radical painterly style that provides rare and impressive insight into the artist’s development in the crucial formative stage of his career. His first large scale nude, the present work is a testament not only to Dubuffet’s revolutionary Art Brut philosophy and his enduring protest against traditional standards of artistry and convention, but to the artist’s lasting influence on the trajectory of modern painting. As stated of this work by esteemed historian and curator Peter Selz, “This extraordinary painting not only holds all the premonitions of the Corps de Dames, but with its clumsy, awkward stance, its gesture of exclamatory display, its cruel but loving outline, its naïve emphasis on sex, it is one of the strongest and boldest des in modern painting.”

Past Auction

The Macklowe Collection

16 May 2022 | 7:00 PM EDT | New York