Jean Dubuffet

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Harold Weinstein, Chicago
Burt Kleiner, Beverly Hills
Stephen Hahn, New York and Santa Barbara
By descent to the present owner from the above

Paris, Galerie Rive Droite, Jean Dubuffet: Tableaux d'Assemblages, April - May 1957, cat. no. 30P
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Exhibition of 'Peintures, d'Assemblages, Graffiti, Sols, Texturologie' and Other Recent Works Done in 1956 and 1957 by Jean Dubuffet, February 1958, cat. no. 4, p. 6, illustrated
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Retrospective Dubuffet: 1943-1959, November - December 1959, cat. no. 55, illustrated

Max Loreau, ed., Catalogue des travaux de Jean Dubuffet, Fascicule XII: Tableaux d’assemblages, Lausanne, 1969, cat. no. 89, p. 81, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. The edges of the canvas are taped. There is evidence of light wear and handling along the edges including minor faint and unobtrusive hairline craquelure at the pull margins. The collaged elements and areas of thick impasto all appear stable. There is evidence of hairline craquelure in the collaged canvas elements in the lower half of the painting, all of which appear stable, with one minor area of loss at the bottom of the left figure.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.

In 1955, Jean Dubuffet left Paris, abandoning the melancholy and trauma of this ravaged city to take a house in Vence in the South of France. A deeply sentient and empathetic man, Dubuffet was wounded by the horrors of war and its slow and painful aftermath. The cruelty of man spurred him to turn his back on the city and urban life. In Vence he rediscovered a deep contact with nature. Painting in a deliberately crude manner, Dubuffet developed a technique of thick impasto, called haute pâte, and frequently incorporated unorthodox materials ranging from cement and gravel to leaves, dust, and even butterfly wings into his works. His controversial materials and mark making solidified his legacy as an iconoclastic figure in the canon of post-war European painting.

Compagnonnage is one of the first of Dubuffet's Tableaux d'Assemblages, an important series of work dating November 1955 to December 1956, in which the artist arrived at the concept of using pre-painted canvas collage. By cutting the canvas directly he negated the need for pencil drawing and allowed the scissors to dictate the realization of the composition, often solely by intuition. Once he had created these distinct elements, the process of over-layering on the canvas created an ethereal tissue of representation defined by the emergence of unexpected juxtapositions of color and texture. In concert with this, by cutting the canvas straight from the roll he allowed himself even greater freedom to experiment with composition, free from the fear of compromising the rest of the painting irretrievably with one false move. For Dubuffet, the raw and uninhibited expression of Art Brut provided a fresh and alternative direction to what he saw as the stifling decorum and conformity of French culture and the Western tradition.

In Compagnonnage the assembly of patches and the network of lines encircles and blends seamlessly with the figures themselves. Despite their rudimentary representation, the closeness of the figures, both emotionally and physically, is not lost on the viewer. Shoulder to shoulder and cheek to cheek, they stand together, facing forward, locked in a timeless embrace. Their resilience and mutual reliance on one another is metaphorically represented in the uniformity of the line and collage work that shapes and defines each of the figures. There is something utterly classic and perennially familiar about these two forms clutching one another; reduced to the simplest of elements and evocative of the rawest emotions, they are a symbol of love and companionship through the ages. 

There is also an interesting political edge to this work. The title alludes to a workers union movement in rural areas dominated by the agricultural industry. These were the same the rural areas that had suffered so much in the bloodshed and destruction of World War II and were drained of all of their young men. That this movement’s peak was during the 19^th Century and came to its end with the onset of industrialization would have held some significance to Dubuffet. After the war, Dubuffet became disillusioned with urban life and this propelled him to retreat to the country to be surrounded by nature, abandoning industrialization. Compagnonnage alludes to a different time, a simpler one, where nature played an integral role in the life of many. This simplicity and embrace of nature, moving away from the artificial and the urbane were qualities in painting to which Dubuffet would devote himself over the span of the next few years. Dubuffet constructed figures out of the building blocks of nature; the figure's eyes, nose, and mouth take on the textured imprints of speckled porphyry, grooved wood, and bubbly cork. This love of texture and in particular the surprising fascination with the earth is best embodied by the following quote: “Look at what lies at your feet!” Dubuffet wrote in a 1957 essay, “A crack in the ground, sparkling gravel, a tuft of grass, some crushed debris, offer equally worthy subjects for your applause and admiration.”

Compagnonnage evinces Dubuffet’s deliberate rejection of cultural and urban pretensions and unique Art Brut aesthetic. It is precisely these qualities that brought him acclaim as one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th Century. Indeed, his candid critique of occidental cultural institutions and fervent dismissal of conventional artistic values have earned him critically lauded retrospectives at major museums such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, the Museum of Art, Dallas, and the Walker Art Center in Milwaukee among others.