Jean Dubuffet

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

Pace Wildenstein, New York

Ronald S. Lauder, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2011

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Jean Dubuffet, 1959, p. 74, illustrated

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, The Work of Jean Dubuffet, 1962, p. 152, illustrated

Berlin, Akademie der Künste; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst; and Cologne, Josef- Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Dubuffet retrospektive, 1980-81, p. 193, illustrated

New York, Pace Wildenstein, Jean Dubuffet: The Radiant Earth, 1996, pp. 70-71, illustrated in colour 

Max Loreau, Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fasc. XVII: Materiologies, Paris 1969, p. 16, no. 4, illustrated

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly less red in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is attached verso to the backing board . There is some slight undulation to the sheet and one artist's pinhole towards the centre of the upper edge. There is some minor wear to the top left corner tip and in places to the extreme left edge. Close inspection reveals some lifting and flaking to some of the leaves with is inherent to their ageing process.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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The father of Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet sought to re-define the binaries of high and low, trash and treasure, beauty and the bestial, which have become prominent themes of contemporary art culture. His oeuvre represents a series of experiments that effectively test these invented boundaries, making him one of the most innovative, diverse and acclaimed artists of the Twentieth Century.

La Forêt is an exemplar of Dubuffet’s Eléments Botaniques series, where his love of texture reached its apex as he began to mix natural elements from leaves, soil and gravel into his works. This tactile investigation of space was celebrated this year at the The Museum of Modern Art, New York, exhibition, Jean Dubuffet: Soul of the Underground, which underlined the pivotal importance of these works as both the inspiration and basis for the artist’s L’hourloupe sculptural aesthetic.

Dubuffet’s botanical curiosity was sparked when he moved to Vence in 1955. He began an almost encyclopaedic collection of lithographs of various plants until finally pasting them directly into his works. This implementation of material reality as opposed to painterly representation was a monumental change in his style. However, for Dubuffet, this literal iteration of the ‘brutal’ rawness he espoused was not simply a means of handling reality, so much as an opportunity to re-train the viewer’s eye, for with illustration, the tendency is for the mind to interpret the object according to cultural conditioning. However, by collaging reality into the work Dubuffet subverts this automatic limitation to make room for an invented topography.

Indeed, the earthbound gaze of La Forêt nourishes Dubuffet’s reinvention of the painted surface and dismissal of hierarchies of landscape. In-keeping with his Art Brut aesthetic that celebrated the art of those outside of the cultural norm, he looked toward flora and fauna outside of the Old Master landscape tradition. He tilted his viewpoint downwards; away from the picturesque paysage and towards forgotten foliage. “Look at what lies at your feet!” Dubuffet exclaimed 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” (Karen Rosenberg, ‘A Creative Vision So Down to Earth, Jean Dubuffet at the Museum of Modern Art’, New York Times, 1 January 2015, online resource).

La Forêt occupies a paradoxical space: anchored by a suggested horizon and yet flattened as a bird’s-eye view over a cluttered surface. This suspension from organised perspective allows the viewer to appreciate the surface of the work along one plain. Dubuffet achieves the all-over effect of Pollock, whom he met a few years before in 1952, without loosing the figurative element of the leaves.

This single, decorative plane allows the elements of the work to interact in a more ornate choreography, emphasising their texture and tactility. As Dubuffet does not make any hierarchical distinction between elements of the work, the lines between them become intervals that enhance this natural embellishment and undulation. The cut-up, collaged, and reconstituted elements of La Forêt form a surface that appears as a complex puzzle, a topology and almost a bas relief sculpture as each layer builds a composite billowing form. These varied surface sensations of matter and material run like a thread throughout Dubuffet’s oeuvre but here they are at their height. 

Falling somewhere between collage of found elements, painting, and sculptural relief, La Forêt invites us up-close to the work, to become the botanists – not so much the viewers as the appreciators of a new found beauty that we never thought to look down and notice.