JEAN DUBUFFET | Ciseaux I

Galerie Beyeler, Basel
The Pace Gallery, New York
Collection of Mrs. S. Kittay, New York 
Waddington Galleries Ltd., London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in July 1986

Paris, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Utensiles, Demeures, Escaliers de Jean Dubuffet, June - July 1967, cat. no. 8, illustrated
Stockholm, Galerie Burén, Jean Dubuffet: L’Hourloupe, October - November 1967, cat. no. 15, illustrated 
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Jean Dubuffet, February - April 1968, cat. no. 18

Max Loreau, Ed., Catalogue de travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule XXI: L’Hourloupe II, Paris 1968, cat. no. 247, p. 144, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. There is light evidence of handling and wear to the edges. Under very close inspection, a minor and unobtrusive spot of loss is visible 1-inch from the top edge, 21-inches from the right edge. Two notable light brown spot accretions are visible: a drip accretion with accumulation 23-inches from the bottom and 7.5-icnhes from the right and a spot accretion along the bottom edge 12-inches from the left. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Framed.
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.

A tangled web of red, white, and blue patterns are cut and spliced from multiple aerial perspectives into a single unified construction, revealing a unique vision of a pair of scissors in Jean Dubuffet’s remarkable Ciseaux I. Executed in 1966, it is a highly accomplished large-scale example of the artist’s celebrated Ustensiles Utopiques paintings, in which he applied his signature l’Hourloupe style to a series of ubiquitous, everyday objects. Divorced from any context or distractions, and presented as the sole focus of the composition, the humble scissors become a sublime icon in this celebration of the everyday. Following on from the seminal Paris Circus paintings of the early 1960s, these are some of Dubuffet’s most characteristic works, and Ciseaux I represents the pinnacle of his distinctive oeuvre. As an emblematic example of Ustensiles Utopique, the present work takes its place alongside the depictions of teacups, bottles, chairs, stoves, and faucets that had been his focus since 1964. Each work in the series follows a consistent compositional structure: the object, abstractly rendered in an interlocking jigsaw of reds, blues, whites, and Breton stripes, is placed on a stark black background that is devoid of any potential signifiers of time and place. Dubuffet’s amorphous compositions lavished attention upon overlooked quotidian objects with the same uninhibited sense of childlike wonder that had driven his earliest fascination with Art Brut. Under the guise of l’Hourloupe, banal manufactured objects become sites of “utopia,” visionary reappraisals of the formerly unstudied paraphernalia of daily existence. Thus Ciseaux I is, in many ways, the culmination of Dubuffet’s artistic ambitions: a new unschooled visual language, deployed to translate the raw essence of everyday life.

Compressed into two dimensions and starkly highlighted within a flat black background, Dubuffet’s unassuming scissors are elevated from a common ordinary object to a metamorphic curiosity that takes on a splendor of its own. Like his American contemporaries Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg, Dubuffet chose to celebrate the beauty of the banal, defamiliarizing ubiquitous objects to create bold artistic interpretations. With Ciseaux I and the rest of the Ustensiles Utopiques, Dubuffet completely redefined the traditional genre of still life, ushering in a new brand of French Pop art.