Jean dubuffet artistic movement

Le Havre, 1901–Paris, 1985

A towering figure of postwar European art, Jean Dubuffet is also known for gathering a large personal collection of works by artists that he perceived as self-taught or marginalized.

He coined the term art brut (raw art) to describe the leading principle of his collecting and exhibiting activities, a notion that he defended and expanded upon in a large corpus of manifestos, theoretical writings, and monographs from the late 1940s onward.

Art brut would play an important role in postwar debates on authorship and agency, opening artistic production to work made outside of academic traditions.

Dubuffet studied at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1918 and became involved in Montparnasse art circles in the early 1920s, especially through his friendship with Surrealists Georges Limbour and André Masson.

Although he progressively turned away from his artistic career to take over the family wine business, wartime commercial success achieved