"The role of the artist[...] and the poet is precisely to blur normal categories, to disrupt them, and by doing so restore to the eyes and the mind ingenuity and freshness."
—Jean DubuffetArtistically inspired from a young age, Jean Dubuffet rejected academic training in favour for an organic development of his own, unique style. Taking influence from those who expressed themselves artistically outside of formal training - from graffitists, tattooists, patients in psychiatric hospitals or those who used the spoken word - lead to his first career milestone with the creation of the art movement Art Brut. Directly translating to raw art, his canvases were testament to his anti-academy stance; twisting all academic boundaries into compositions that denied their categorisation and subsequently labelled by critics as ‘low art’ and written off as naïve. Dubuffet was introduced to a new influence on his production when he first came across Fautrier’s abstract forms. With these in mind, Dubuffet began to experiment with the use of non-painterly materials such as mud, pebbles, and sand, combined with oil paints to create a thick paste that he applied to his canvases with a spatula. The results are compositions with heavily textured surfaces that bear witness to the development of a creative process infused with irony, social commentary, and humour.
Jean Fautrier, Paysage, 1957, Civic Collection of Modern Art, Milan. Image: Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Sergio Anelli/Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022 "Man's need for art is absolutely primordial, as strong as, and perhaps stronger than, our need for bread. Without bread, we die of hunger, but without art we die of boredom."
—Jean DubuffetWithin his oeuvre, Dubuffet produced around 500 works executed between 1981 and 1982, which are retrospectively referred to as his ‘Psycho-sites’. The present example boasts the quintessential characteristics of this series. None of the works are the same, indeed the very concept of the ‘Psycho-sites’ relies on their unique, haphazard differences. The subtleties in each canvas alter their reception, interpretation, and aesthetic experience. With compositions that excite and enthral the visual sense, the spectator's eye is guided around the canvas in a wholly personal relationship with the work. No viewing experience is the same from person-to-person or from work-to-work. This enchanting exploration of human nature defines the series, making them a crucial reflection point within Dubuffet’s works.Site Avec Un Personnage, with its strikingly bold colour palette of scarlet tones and azure highlights, is an important example within the series. The fast, frenetic brushstrokes zigzag across the canvas, drawing the viewers eye towards a singular figure to the right of the scene. Hidden amongst a cacophony of line and colour, Dubuffet’s inclusion of a figure brings a human intermediary into the composition. His works shatter the concept of the western idea of beauty, gone are the tamed, the posed and the perfect, instead replaced by the haphazard, the unexpected and the raw. He turned the tide of taste in his own direction and marked a legacy that will radiate down through generations to come.
"All of these small paintings actually build on the conviction that there is no basis for differentiating between a site considered real and a phantom, in a basic sense; all that we believe to see being always and in all cases an arbitrary production of the spirit."
—Jean DubuffetThe extent of Dubuffet’s unique artistic approach was recently on view at the Barbican, London with the artist’s celebrated solo exhibition Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty in 2021.
Jean Dubuffet, Random Site with Five Characters; Site Aleatoire avec Cinq Personnages, 1982, Private Collection. Image: © Christie's / Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022 Mark Haddon on Jean Dubuffet | Tate
Provenance
The Estate of the Artist
Waddington Galleries, London (acquired in 1987)
Manny Silverman Gallery, Beverly Hills
Private Collection, Malibu
Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York
Rosenbaum Contemporary, Boca Raton (acquired from the above in 2014)
Acquired from the above by the present ownerLiterature
Max Loreau, catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet Psycho-sites, fascicule XXXIV, Paris, 1984, no. 497, p. 132, 154 (illustrated, p. 132)
152
Site avec un personnage
signed with the artist's initials and dated 'J.D 82' lower right
acrylic on paper laid on canvas
50 x 68.2 cm (19 5/8 x 26 7/8 in.)
Executed on 29 January 1982.
Estimate
£120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
Specialist, Associate Director, Head of Day Sale, 20th Century & Contemporary Art
+44 20 7318 4084
20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale
London Auction 13 October 2022
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